Maker cohort meetings taught me so much about different ways to bring creativity to the classroom. Here, I felt really connected to my peers and colleagues over making STEM curriculum and concepts more accessible to my scholars. I learned about how to create and build my own makerspace and how to facilitate a safe space for my scholars to freely express themselves and to learn new STEM concepts and ideas. A variety of classroom practices were also modeled during these meetings, such as problem-solving skills and peer collaboration, and they really helped me find different ways to help my scholars work with one another. With such a diverse group of individuals in UTeach Maker, these activities helped me and inspired me to foster an environment in my own classroom that also celebrated diversity and equitable creative opportunities for my own scholars.
In addition to our monthly meetings, weekend workshops focused teaching makers new skills and techniques - using multiple forms of technology. During these workshops, makers were able to try out different tools and methods and got the opportunity to just simply make with one another!
The image on the left here is an example of something new that I learned at one of the workshops - block coding! This was a part of the circuit playground DIY snowglobe weekend workshop.
One of the leadership roles that I took on during my time with UTeach Maker was being the Maker Volunteer Coordinator. I would help organize volunteer sign-up sheets and make sure that volunteers received accurate information about the event and the shifts that were available.
In the example shown on the right here, I created a sign-up for our members to volunteer at MakerFaire Austin.