Saturday, September 28, 2013

Creating a STEAM Lab

Our efforts for STEAM Labs/Maker Station Fridays have started. Week one introduced students to the notion, and now we're in the development process.

This week also showed us that we need to extend our labs to all classrooms to meet students' need for varying spaces, volume, light, and room to build, create, and share. Hence, we divided up the responsibility and took specific areas of focus to develop in the week to come. My area of focus will include math, research, animation, and movie making.

Now the challenge is to set up the room to support this focus.

Here's the plan:

First, I'll create a Website and Symbaloo to guide students' choices.

Next, I'll restructure the space in the room to support research corners (one for quiet, independent work and one for collaborative work), recording spaces, and conferencing/editing locations.

After that, I'll plan the introduction.

Then, I'll observe, guide, and support children during next Friday's STEAM time.  After that, I'll reflect alone and with the team, and then continue to build and develop the effort.