Makerspace - From The Ground Up

The Ashland Innovation Center - starts from nothing

Last fall I sat down and introduced one of my administrators to the concept of a Makerspace. I warned her that I was about to change her life. And so I have. She immediately jumped into research mode, then excited mode, and then we started working together to build a team and build our dream.

Six months later we have built an amazing team of teachers and administrators from around our district and we have started getting funding commitments. In this blog, I hope that we will be able to share our process, our goals, and ultimately, our results.

Step 1: Build a team

For some reason, I started the year really inspired by the idea of a Makerspace. Despite being the lead teacher in a rapidly growing computer science 'department', I still felt a need to do more. I immediately reached out to my administrator, Lauren. She was also pretty inspired. From there I reached out to Leah, one of the art teachers in our school who had been talking about a Makerspace for years and had a clear interest. Because I wanted to design not just a makerspace for our school, but something that could reach into the schools beyond, we decided to reach out to others outside of our school. Now our team is loosely constructed of seven teachers and administrators from around the district.
High School - Computer Science & Technology teacher (me)
High School - Art Teacher (Leah)
High School - Administrator (Lauren)
High School - Art teacher - the other one (Scott)
Middle School - STEAM Lab teacher (Terri)
Elementary School - Administrator & technology enthusiast (Claudia)
Elementary School - Classroom teacher (Kiera)

With our adult team in place, it was time to bring in the future of the Makerspace, students. With very little effort, we were able to build a team of ten students who would be a key part of helping us develop ideas and pilot programs. We call them the Makerspace Mentors.

I look forward to sharing more of process and to post photos to help you visualize what we are creating along the way.

~Chad (@ahstechteacher)