Getting Started with Inquiry-Based STEM & Digital Fabrication

Presented by: Susan Wells, Founder CEO TechTerra Education

Why STEM and Maker Ed?

• Construct meaning by doing

• Creating not consuming

• Imagining and innovating

Jobs Today and Tomorrow

Jerry Michalski, the founder at REX, a technology think tank in Portland, Ore., feared public schools and universities aren’t keeping up with changes in the economy.“They take too long to teach impractical skills,” he wrote, “and knowledge not connected to the real world.” “I’m skeptical that educational and training programs can keep pace with technology,” added Thomas Claburn, editor-at-large at Information Week, a news site. May 3, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/03/what-are-humans-good-for-bosses-worry-about-the-workforce-of-tomorrow/

Learning Today

Learners need interpersonal skills - compassion, empathy, vulnerability and social-emotional intelligence

“Not left brain or right brain but One Brain.” Greg Watts, dean of the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas

4 C’s- Creation - Critical Thinking - Collaboration - Communication

Teaching Today• Personalized

• Project-based and hands-on

• Competency-based, students demonstrating that they’ve learning the knowledge and skills

• Student autonomy and choice

• Inquiry-based, driven more by a learner's questions than by a teacher's lessons, teaching how to learn not

memorizing facts

Spaces for Today’s Learners

Critical thinking and creating

new understanding

Collaborate and Communicate

Personalized for

student and group needs

Focus on STEM and

STEAMMobile and

Creative

Personalized, small group

and large group

Hands-on creation space

Collaborate, Communicate,

Create

Project-based Design

Creating with Digital

Tools

Using space differently

Personalization and comfort - to

create and imagine and communicate

"Makerspaces are increasingly being looked to as a method for engaging

learners in creative, higher-order problem-solving through hands-on design, construction, and iteration”

–New Media Consortium Horizon Report K-12 Edition

Tools and Resources

AR and Video Game Creation

Robotics

CNC Engraver

CNC Router 3D Printer

Virtual Reality and CNC Creation Software

Stop Motion Animation

3D Pen

Found and Recycled Items

Hands-On Engineering, Design, Code

Circuitry, Augmented Reality, Coding

AUV (Autonomous Underwater

Vehicles) and 3D

Print Resources

Teachers and Curriculum ConnectionsLearning Objectives Enhanced with 21st Century Tools

21st Century Tool - 3D and Digital CNCResources for Projects and Lesson Plans

https://ultimaker.com/en/resources/education/the-savvy-3d-educator-s-superlist

https://www.tinkercad.com/teach

http://www.instructables.com/howto/3d/

Students are...• Engaged

• Invested

• Problem-solvers

• Confident

• Working with powerful tools & powerful ideas

• Involved in authentic work for the real world

Susan Wels Founder CEO TechTerra Education

ISTE Mobile Learning Network President susan@techterraeducation.com

http://www.techterraeducation.com @techterraed @wellssusans