Thank you for taking the time to watch our video. We are very interested in your feedback, especially with regard to the following questions:

1. What are your current thoughts about making as an educational tool?

2. Do you feel that making should be included in teacher preparation? Why or why not?

3. What do you see as the benefits and challenges of using an open portfolio to document and assess work?

This sounds like an exciting program. I'd love to see something like this in Kansas.

Great video!

     Certainly making is a valuable educational tool that should be present in every teacher's training regimen.  It actively engages students in science, which is often the largest barrier, especially for underrepresented minorities.  It promotes creativity and artistic abilities as essential to the scientific process and STEM.

     Regarding the challenges of the open portfolio, how has the documentation process been? One of the great benefits to Maker education and the open portfolio process is that you can see the challenges in real time and you can journal it (much like a lab notebook), but the process of doing this can disrupt the flow of the work as you spend more time trying to capture every detail rather than engaging in the work, itself.  I am curious if you had any issues here?

     Further, what challenges did you encounter in terms of recruiting underrepresented students to this program?

I love all the different tools and materials they're using. What a variety of projects they're creating. I am wondering what has been effective in communicating with schools about the skills the UTeach Fellows are developing. What do schools see as valuable about the program? What do they want to see changing in the teaching profession?

I love the work y'all are doing! So great to see it featured here.

I have seen directly the investment students bring to their projects which enables learning engagement at a much deeper level.  With interest in developing an idea to a physical object, students embrace learning new skills such as coding, sewing, woodworking, 3-D printing, cooking or any number of transferrable skills and/or use of tools.  I like the portfolio aspect and seeing this evaluation of their own success is powerful.  The variety of materials and creativity for producing is apparent.  Every school needs a maker space with credentialed teachers.

Thank you for sharing! I am very interested in how you were able to incorporate extra credits for the micro-credentials into your teacher preparation program. Are these students graduate or undergraduate? Did they take extra courses to complete micro-credential or did you change your program to fit in these courses? One of our major challenges - upper limit on number of credits our students can have in order to get degree, major requirements, and accreditation requirements that leave no room for any extra courses.

This program is fabulous!  It's great to provide these opportunities to pre-service teachers.  I've seen first hand how incorporating maker projects in my own class rooms has increased the level of engagement, allowed students to grow by using new materials and tools, and provided them with ways to connect their own creative outlets to content.  I'm amazed at the number of times I have had students tell me they "weren't good at math" completely change their attitude and embrace new concepts when they were able to explore the material through an artistic or project based lens.  Maker projects are also beneficial in teaching underlying problem solving techniques and encourage students to "think outside the box".  UTeach's micro-credential program helps give these teachers of tomorrow a wonderful opportunity to move beyond the passive learning/teaching methods of the past and into a new mind set.

Having worked in and around STEM teacher prep for the last decade, a clear theme has always been the need for developing and sustaining communities of practice and mentorship - at every level of the teaching profession. This helps more students enter the pipeline, allows them to see teaching as a realistic possibility, and continues to engage them as STEM professionals once they enter the classroom.

A program like UTeach Maker, which incorporates dedicated mentors, access to innovative tools and labs, and shared curriculum/resources through open showcases, allows room for pre-service teachers to explore, grow, express, and reflect in super supportive environments. In return, Maker Mentors get to share their passions and engage with the next generation of teachers. In turn, this ultimately creates a community of teachers with the confidence to seamlessly integrate innovative and inclusive teaching practices into their daily routine.  

What a wonderful project!  Love to have you find a way to teach grad students in STEM and faculty how to think about incorporating this  kind of program for higher ed STEM faculty.  With the development of innovation centers, it seems like this might be a great step.  Think about sharing your work with HEMI?

http://hemi.mit.edu/

How do you find ways to compensate students for their work? Can this be extended to practing teachers?

How did you persuade faculty and others to be mentors for such projects?

Shelly,

This is a great project and I look forward to collaborating with you in the future!

What an amazing program! My husband has loved being a mentor. Yes, I absolutely believe that this should be included in all teacher training. I have two kids, ages 13 and 15. They sit in Science classes and they learn so many important concepts, and then they take a test and proceed to forget most of what they have learned. And the cycle repeats. Hands-on making allows them to get passionate about creating something, learn new and useful skills such as working with tools and computers, and actually internalize so many important STEM concepts. Keep up the good work!

FABULOUS! I want to be a UTeach Maker! Honestly, I think all teachers need to incorporate making into their repertoire! Thanks for sharing this excellent video!

Making was my doorway into STEM, at around the age of 9. A mathematics educator gave me a box of electronics parts with no directions, curious what I would do with it. The answer was that I turned into a physicist.

Making can do that

This is a fascinating program and very nice video. I have a couple of questions:

1) How much time do the participants spend in the program? How do they balance that against their other coursework?

2) Do you have any data on the outcomes for participants in the job market?

3) Are there ways this program could be brought to other groups, for example high school students? 

Excellent video. Can you share more about micro credentialing and how your program quantifies the hours/effort for each project to meet the goal of credentialing? 

As someone who has been involved with this program since very near its inception, I am excited to see UTeach Maker expand beyond just UT and I hope to see it grow even further! I am currently a chemistry teacher at a relatively traditional high school and it is incredible the difference you see when students have agency and personal choice in their learning rather than the traditional skill and drill. Students are not only eager to create an artifact they can show off to their peers and parents, but are also excited to introduce their own personal flair to what they do.

I would not have been able to create innovative lesson plans and focus in on the important creative aspect of education had I not joined UTeach Maker. The program prepared me to push the boundaries of how I teach my content in order to appeal to a broad range of students. While making can harbor some difficulties, such as funding and time constraints, the lessons wherein I'm able to incorporate a making aspect always garner far more engagement from my students. This is why I hope to see this program branch out to even more universities and see making in even more K-12 schools, as I have seen first hand the difference it can make!

If anyone happens to have any questions from the classroom teacher's side of things, feel free to ask!

This looks great.   How do you approach your evaluation beyond the open portfolio?  

I would guess that this open portfolio will provide rich qualitative information but may be limited if you have specific questions that you want to explore about your program or the students.  For example how does this experience impact their interest in teaching, or change their approach to teaching? 

Love what you are doing with Maker Space.  I sent your video link to a doctoral student of mine researching maker spaces.

Hi Shelly,

Love this! We have a program at UNCG where pre-service teachers volunteer as Makers-in-Residence in our makerspace each semester. We have been iterating on a design for organizing their maker portfolio, I love the feedback cycle that you have incorporated from both maker experts and the community. I'd love to hear about your design process as well and some of what you've learned works (and what doesn't!) We should connect! 

Great video and program! The work that you are leading is visionary and groundbreaking. Did I hear that you recently joined the Make for All movement? Is the plan to scale the micro-credentialing effort to other UTeach replication sites? 

 Nice work, Dr. Rodriguez and team! Super innovative and important work. 

As a participant of this program, I've learned so much and made huge changes in my classroom. Making gets students excited to learn and incorporates the skills they need to master. Today in class we're making design journals and 3D printing a personally meaningful molecule. Thanks to UTeach Maker, I've been able to learn about my students more by watching them make.