Presenter: Vinnie Vrotny and Sheryl Peterson
Location: Palatine, IL US
@vvrotny and @speterson224
Presentation Title: STEAM: Creating A Maker Mindset
Presentation Description: Look around a lower grade or early childhood classroom. You will see a flurry of activity, students building, constructing, and experimenting with materials. This dynamic changes in middle and high school, as these once confident students begin with questions such as, “Why are we doing this?”, “Am I doing this right?”, and “Is this on the test?” which changes to the statement, “I am not good at this.”
A new movement which is emerging, the Maker Movement, which now challenges students to become the learner they once were, willing to try and confident in their ability to learn. It is:
School Projects + Technology = Maker 2.0
During this session, you will learn how one school has transformed its space and created a STEAM curriculum designed to allow students to rediscover their inner kindergartner. The focus of this session will be on the curriculum is being built to allow middle school students to either explore and discover their passions or dive deep into a self-identified areas of passion so that they can become someone who is willing to try, confident in their ability to learn new things, often with the help of others, and a willing to prototype, fail, reflect, and rebuild.
This session will share the environment and classroom tools which will supplement this. You will find out how you can start small, for less than 0 and scale upwards from there.
Link to presentation’s supporting documents:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZpjMxZwq-5sWqqgE-9vAPO1iMCocxauESVo3RhStZc0/edit?usp=sharing
Additional Information:
Vinnie Vrotny
vvrotny.org
keepingupwithit.edublogs.org
Sheryl Peterson
http://petersonartblog.blogspot.com/