Author: doramr

  • Making Food and Memories at an East Bay Maker Educator Meetup

    Our staff member Linda recently reminded us that “almost a year ago we did an intergenerational MEM around food and memories and never posted about it because life got so […]

  • Zines as Expressions of Community Change

    At Maker Ed, we believe that in order to have an impact across the country it is important to also partner with educators locally. One of our local connections is with Achieve Academy, a TK-6 public charter school in Oakland, CA. At our second workshop, we engaged in a Tinkering to Discover lesson focused on…

  • Earthquake Engineering and Cardboard Linkages at the CA STEAM Symposium

    We had a blast at the recent 2019 CA STEAM Symposium held in Anaheim, CA! We loved meeting so many educators over the course of two days in this year’s Makerspace. We hosted a drop-in Earthquake Engineering activity, as well as a Cardboard Linkages workshop session. Read more…

  • Making to Learn About the Civil Rights Movement through Sewing and Textiles

    Our approach to professional development is intentionally designed to be experiential, where educators actively participate from the perspectives of their learners as a way to reflect on their own practice, facilitation, and design of maker centered learning experiences. To support educators from a variety of environments, we also integrate making experiences that represent a diversity…

  • Wheel of Documentation: Workshop Takeaways

    Wheel of Documentation: Workshop Takeaways

    How can documentation support assessment? How do you know when learners know? What types of learning do we value, but don’t normally assess? In our recent two-day, hands-on workshop, Documenting for Assessment, we explored these questions while developing a variety of tools and strategies to make learning visible and broaden our notion of what is…

  • Computational Thinking with micro:bit at an East Bay Maker Educator Meetup

    Computational Thinking with micro:bit at an East Bay Maker Educator Meetup

    As an opportunity to explore programming and computational thinking with a community of educators, we recently prototyped a physical computing with micro:bit activity at our kickoff East Bay Maker Educator Meetup (EBMEM). Read more…

  • Examining Social Justice Themes through micro:bit and Scratch

    Weaving together themes of social justice with ELA standards, block-based programming with Scratch, and physical computing with micro:bit, this series of linked activities from our Approaches to Maker Education workshop showcased a learning progression that integrated all three of our Approaches to Curriculum Integration: Tinkering to Discover, Making to Learn, and the Application Project. Read…

  • Tinkering with Light and Shadow to Support Science Discovery

    Tinkering with Light and Shadow to Support Science Discovery

    We recently hosted a Maker Educator Meetup for 30 K-8 science educators in collaboration with Community Resources for Science (CRS) as part of their Field Trip for Teachers program. Read on for an example of a learner-driven, inquiry-based activity that aligns with Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) practices, built on our Approaches to Maker Education…

  • Institute Day Five: Equity Maps, Resources, and Final Reflections

    Institute Day Five: Equity Maps, Resources, and Final Reflections

    After working all week on identifying resources around curriculum integration, program development, and assessment through the lens of equity and sustainability, we had the opportunity to share and present all of our work with each other. Read more…

  • Institute Day Four: Creating and Prototyping Resources

    Institute Day Four: Creating and Prototyping Resources

    On Day Four of our summer Institute, we started the morning with an equity session centered on the Ready for Rigor framework provided in Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain by Zaretta Hammond. This framework outlines four areas of practice of culturally responsive teaching that enable us to support learners to become more independent: awareness,…