Why Maker Space?

Life in the 21st century is complex and fast changing, with a need for people to be adaptable and constantly learning to thrive and feel part of this changing society. New jobs and opportunities are being created. Alongside this, there are many complex problems that need solving on local, national and global levels, climate change being an example. We need people that are curious and want to find out more, that can collaborate (rather than compete) to find solutions together, think critically (does this solution solve the problem? Is this fact true?), have the skills to think laterally and solve problems (as there are many to be solved – big and small), and be compassionate and empathise to understand life in someone else’s shoes and want to make things better (all these skills are often grouped together as 'Creativity Skills'). To achieve this these skills need to be nurtured and taught throughout school life to create a future society of people that have compassion and agency and can be active within their communities and wider society, whether at work or in life in general.

In school we generally teach to the known, the answer is known, and we help pupils to reach that answer, mainly because of the need to assess and our exam based system.

However we need people in society that feel comfortable working within the unknown, willing to ask questions, to solve many of the problems that do and don’t yet exist, and to also create new and exciting opportunities.

How do we achieve this in school? Maker Space and Maker Pedagogy is one possible example, and we have seen it work here in Stirling. Find out more below.

What is Maker Space?

There are many iterations of what a Maker Space is (and I will list some websites to explore to find out more below), but fundamentally it is a space for collaboration, for learning, sharing, exploring, creating and making. Some Maker Space's might have access to high tech tools, others don't.

Stirling's pilot Maker Space at Allans PS uses minimal technology and is focused on the Creative Thinking Process (click on this link to find out more) and the learning, sharing, exploring, creating and making that happens and if something is to be made it is made out of recycled materials such as cardboard.

Of course, Maker Space is a great opportunity to learn to use digital and / or high tech technology, but not having access to this is definitely not a reason for Maker Space not to happen in your school, and actually it is potentially limiting on creativity to think that high tech tools and technology are essential as they can become the focus rather than the innovation of ideas.

You also don't necessarily need a separate space. A separate space can allow for collaborative working across classes and might offer a creative space out with a class if a student is working on something as part of a class topic or beyond but it is not essential. After building a Maker Space space we realised very quickly at Allans Primary School that the real benefit from Maker Space in school was the Creative Thinking Process and what we have termed Maker Pedagogy which meant that Maker Weeks could be taken forward within classroom spaces, and that Maker Pedagogy could exist all year throughout learning in school.

Below we share a film about Maker Space at Allans Primary School in Stirling. If you would like to explore more, there are some video links and websites that you can explore about Maker Spaces.

You can also get in touch with me at creativelearning@stirling.gov.uk if you would like to develop a Maker Space in your school and / or find out more about Maker pedagogy.

Maker Space - Stirling

Thomas Down's, Principal Teacher at Allans PS describes the development of Maker Space at Allans Primary School and below is a film about Allan's Primary School Maker Space.

"Having established our 5C's to help us develop learning for the 21st century (creativity, curiosity, collaboration, critical thinking, communication), we felt it was really important to think about what these would look like across each stage of the school and how we could raise the profile of them. We have all heard ‘buzz words’ and acronyms branded about, but we wanted to make sure our staff and learners had a real understanding of what our 5Cs are, their vital importance to all that we do – both in and out of school – and also how these can be developed progressively throughout the learners’ journey from Nursery to P7 through creative approaches. For each of these 5Cs we pulled together a success criteria for each stage in child-friendly language, so that there is a shared understanding of how our skills can develop over time.

However, we recognised that it isn’t enough to raise pupil’s awareness of the skills. As well as raising the profile of our 5Cs through tweaks to what we were already doing, we decided that we needed to introduce something fresh that would excite and engage our learners and provide them with opportunities to think differently about their learning whilst really focusing on putting their 5Cs in action.

This was when Maker Space at Allans Primary School was born.

Makerspace projects have definitely been a great vehicle for us to develop our learners’ skills, and they can articulately explain and give examples of how they have used these in different stages of the process. Possibly the most important for us, our young people see themselves as real change-makers – they can see that their ideas and designs could have a positive impact on not just themselves, but for their community and perhaps even the world! "

If you would like to read Thomas' full transcript you can find that here

Below you can see a film about Maker Space at Allans Primary School.