Session 2: Makerspaces as Healing Spaces

How can we help students find opportunities for personal growth and transformation through making? Let’s look at how the makerspaces can foster the development of student- and staff-led communities of mutual support. We will talk with the founder of Dykes with Drills, a Tinkering School sister program that serves the LGBTQ+ community in the Bay Area, look at ways that making can help students with self-definition and self-expression.

About this Event:

Gever Tulley advises schools and educators around the world on how to support Tinkering/Maker education in a truly transformative way.

Who this is for:

This group consultation session is for new schools thinking about how to design their programs, existing schools looking to improve their maker programs, and non-school maker space entities such as libraries, etc.

Session Details:

In this session, Gever will share his thinking and vast experience in training maker educators.

Participants will have an opportunity to share challenges and opportunities they are facing, and learn from Gever and other attendees.

In addition, Gever can speak to topics listed below, among others, depending on the needs of the audience:

Fostering learning independence / autonomy
Creating collaborative tinkering spaces online
How to de-school our tinkering spaces
Framing failure as progress
Emergent projects/curriculum
Narrative frameworks for learning
The language of praise
How to train staff to support these unique spaces

Joining the conversation will be Institute for Applied Tinkering Executive Director Aaron Eden, who works with schools and learning communities around the world to "re-humanize" education by shifting from command-and-control to co-creation.

Evolving Maker Education: Maker Spaces as Healing Spaces