2018

An important part of the Learning in Libraries grant is professional development. Our administrative team and University of Oklahoma researchers are working together to help teachers and librarians build a deeper, broader understanding of what Making and Guided Inquiry are all about.

June 15th Debrief

The Spring 2018 Year 2 team shared their observations. The team shared their 'lessons learned'.

December 6th Debrief and Action Research

1. The Year 1 Pilot team shared their observations and recommendations for the Year 2 teams.

2. Year 2 teams learned about action research. Each school team developed research questions they are interested in answering through data and observations collected during the course of our project. They then explored ways of collecting data that could help them answer their questions. The team moved that conversation into discussing and refining some new ideas about how to collect data.

2017

An important part of the Learning in Libraries grant is professional development. Our administrative team and University of Oklahoma researchers are working together to help teachers and librarians build a deeper, broader understanding of what Making and Guided Inquiry are all about.

August 8 The Maker Process and Research Ethics

1. The grant team looked at stages of Making and how learners interact with each depending on learner characteristics.
2. School teams used a conceptual planning document to analyze the types of Maker experiences they wish their students to engage in.
3. The team considered a number of ethical dilemmas in participatory action research, and identified and discussed which AERA Code of Ethics standards were applicable for each dilemma.

May 12 Professional Development: Design of Learning Environments

As the 2016-2017 school year drew to a close, our team finished a third professional development session for the first spring of our project. The Instructional Services Center is working to create a small Makerspace in our office for staff use, and the PD session was held there.

Our PD3 Objectives included:

1. Develop understanding of theories that contribute to the Maker approach
2. Discuss how to involve students as partners and co-designers
3. Compare GID with GID + Making
4. Design learning environments
   • Formulate goals, objectives & learning outcomes for the Maker approach
   • Link goals and objectives to standards, curriculum and real-world problems
   • Develop higher-order level questions/prompts
   • Design reflection & evaluation

Prior to attending PD 3: Design of Learning Environments, each group was tasked with spending some time interviewing students at their respective schools about themselves and their ideas. Question examples included the following (from Youth Makerspace Playbook!):

• What do you enjoy doing most when you have free time?
• Is there anything that you’d really love to build, make, and/or invent?
• What are the things you see yourself good at when it comes to helping others?
• In what ways do you enjoy helping people the most?
• What are you curious about?
• What are some things you’re most excited to learn or get better at?
• Is there anything that makes you nervous that you’d like more practice and help with?
• Think about your favorite space (A room in your home or school, or even a space outside). Why is it your favorite? What do you like about it?
• If you could add anything to your favorite space, what would it be and why?

Emergent themes based on student responses fell into three overarching themes: low-tech interest, fear of giving wrong answers, and a tendency to give answers that are not very imaginative.

The PD session also covered a discussion of learning frameworks including Guided Inquiry Design and Making.

March 24 Professional Development: The Maker Experience

Friday, March 24th, marked our team's second round of professional development. We had the opportunity to visit the University of Oklahoma campus to utilize three unique campus facilities: the One University Store, Bizzell Memorial Library's Innovation @ the Edge space , and Helmerich Collaborative Learning Center.

At Innovation @ the Edge, Emerging Technologies Librarians provided us with guidance and instruction for using several Maker technologies. At the One University Store, University of Oklahoma students demonstrated a variety of innovative technologies and encouraged us to tinker. We concluded our visit with a tour and debriefing session at the Bizzell Memorial Library Helmerich Collaborative Learning Center.

March 3 Professional Development: Introduction to Making

Our goals for the first professional development (PD) session included:

• Understand Making and its role in learning
• Compare and contrast Guided Inquiry Design (GID) and Maker learning
• Experience hands-on Maker activities
• Reflect on your Maker experience
• Develop a sense of learning community

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services LG-81-16-0151.