How to Develop Maker Education in Schools

Maker education is a combination of maker culture and education. Based on students' interests, it uses digital tools in the way of project learning, advocates creation, encourages sharing, and cultivates interdisciplinary problem-solving ability, team writing ability and innovation ability.

How to carry out maker education?

There are two practical problems in promoting maker education in China: first, the funding problem, and many schools are unable to build maker laboratories; Secondly, the problem of teachers, who don't know how to carry out maker education. Therefore, the teaching of maker education in primary and secondary schools should be formulated according to the actual situation of the school, and the core elements are the support of the principal, curriculum, teacher training, venue equipment, output of achievements and publicity and reporting.

First, the goal: to build a maker-specific education school to cultivate students' innovative consciousness and the ability to "create things" by using digital tools.

Second, the specific measures:

1. Principal's support: strive for the principal's support and form a teacher team of Maker Education, widely publicize it in the school, form a joint force, and formulate reasonable goals and implementation measures. In the absence of clear documents from the education authorities, the most important thing for schools to implement maker education is the support of principals. Without the support of the headmaster, the work will be very difficult.

2. Teacher construction and training: set up a teacher team for maker education, and choose teachers who like makers and are willing to pay according to the actual situation, 3-5 people are appropriate. You can work part-time at first, and gradually expand the team with the development of education, and full-time teachers should account for a certain proportion. Primary schools can include information technology teachers and science teachers, and middle schools can incorporate information technology, research-based learning and general technology into the team. Teachers are not necessarily information technology teachers, but they must have corresponding information technology literacy.

3. Provide timely and effective training for the teacher team of Maker, so that teachers can master the application of digital tools, the basic theory of creativity and the ways and means to carry out Maker education and teaching in primary and secondary schools, and improve their ability through continuous practice, including attending classes, guiding students to create works, screening outstanding works, recommending to participate in innovation competitions, establishing Maker Association in schools, carrying out Maker activities, developing teaching materials and courses, and gradually moving towards specialization and teamwork. Maker teachers should actively participate in regular Maker teacher training activities, broaden their horizons, get to know peers, famous artists, everyone and experts, learn actively with an open mind, and strive to improve their own level. Encourage teachers to participate in national and provincial project activities related to maker education, and improve teachers' scientific research level through project research.

3. Curriculum construction: Introduce or develop maker education courses, enter the courses through information technology, school-based courses or the combination of research-based learning and general technology, and attend classes at least once a week to cultivate students' innovative thinking and practical ability through the courses. The course of hardware construction is often very short, so it is recommended to take two classes at a time; The content of the course can be electronic control (including robots, creating intelligence, etc.) in primary schools. ), programming (Python programming, Scratch programming, etc. ), 3D printing, APP Inventor mobile phone programming, scientific micro-video production, multimedia technology, etc. Course preparation can correspond to four categories, namely Scratch, Arduino, robot intelligent robot and 3D printing. The design of Maker course mainly focuses on the following five aspects:

Regionalization: combining the characteristics of regional industries, reflecting the differences of regionalization. For example, Qufu has a strong traditional cultural atmosphere, and traditional storytelling content can be integrated into the curriculum.

School-based: design school-based maker education courses based on the school's own specialties, such as our traditional cultural characteristics and elegant music, and design them into courses that meet the characteristics of teachers and students.

Equipment: The implementation of Maker Education course must meet the needs of popular teaching and individualized teaching in large classes.

Curriculum: Maker education curriculum needs to combine theory with practical learning, and cultivate innovative thinking training, writing ability and sharing consciousness while practicing creative works. At the same time, the implementation of campus maker education needs to be combined with maker activities, and the implementation of maker education courses should be combined with campus maker activities, and curriculum knowledge teaching should be integrated into the activities, and the good practical experience extracted from campus maker activities should be integrated into campus maker courses to realize the curriculum of campus maker activities; Interdisciplinary: Maker education curriculum not only emphasizes the times of curriculum knowledge, especially technical courses, but also needs to be integrated with other disciplines to carry out curriculum implementation with interdisciplinary knowledge teaching concept. Maker education is the methodology of interdisciplinary learning.

4. Manufacturer's space and equipment:

Maker education must have a special maker space. Maker space must include computers, software and hardware, robots 3D, printers and other basic equipment. If conditions permit, more classrooms can be set up, such as 3D printing studio, robot assembly studio, drone studio, creative intelligence, creative programming classroom, manual studio and achievement exhibition hall.

5. Export of results:

(1) By organizing campus maker activities, such as exhibition and sharing of works, workshops and other learning activities, as well as organizing various campus maker competitions from time to time, such as group competitions, quarterly competitions, school year competitions and theme competitions, students' creativity will be stimulated, students' interest will be enhanced, the implementation results of maker courses will be consolidated, and campus maker activities will be realized.

(2) Actively participate in the regional, provincial and national innovation maker competitions on the list of competitions recognized by the Ministry of Education, guide students to win prizes, and stimulate students' enthusiasm for participating in maker activities through competitions.

6. Publicity and reporting: timely report the school's maker activities through the school website, WeChat group, official WeChat account, school magazine, newspapers and other public network platforms. This has attracted attention and gained support.