While there are a handful of teachers at our school that are involved in their own maker projects — Arduino and Raspberry Pi weather station, 3D printed pinhole camera, laser guide for some (as yet) secret project, hacked musical instruments, and a few others — so far the role of the homeroom teacher has been to ask guiding questions, assess knowledge and understanding, and provide the usual support to their students while we are all in the makerspace together. A colleague has given a (possibly) brilliant suggestion that came out of our PLN’s current professional reading, LAUNCH:

With STEAM, how do we really launch it to the teachers and the wider community? I would like to get teachers to make and share things out to their community and class. Maybe stop teachers watching in maker space, and then have them start making?

The timing of his suggestion is good. In two weeks we begin a new unit with our grade six team (eight classes). Let’s see what happens…