Inside Ruth Freeman’s Abbot School classroom is a standing table in one corner, welcoming students to collaborate and create.
It’s called a makerspace – perhaps the hottest buzz word in education today. This school year, Freeman and her fifth-graders have been the test case for Westford Public Schools with the results featured at the April 3 School Committee meeting.
“When you look at the makerspaces, you’re going to find that there’s a lot of different definitions and really this whole idea is growing,” Freeman said.
So what’s the difference between a makerspace and every kid’s Play Doh project at the kitchen table?
“It’s a very simple concept,” said Assistant Superintendent Kerry Clery. “The difference is having organized zones with resources to provide students with opportunity.”
The makerspace inside Freeman’s classroom offers paint, clay, paper, recycled materials, hammers, saws and hardware.
As the significance of innovation in the economy grows and educators tweak curricula for the next generation, providing physical space for students to create is part of a broader goal for Westford educators, according to Clery.
“Over the past several years we have focused on the four ‘C`s:’ creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and community,” she said. “Many educators refer to those as the skills that are most important when (students) leave 12th grade or graduate from college.”
In 2012, Tony Wagner, Expert In Residence at Harvard University’s Innovation Lab wrote a book entitled, “Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change The World,” in which he argued that ideas will drive the economy of the future, and stem from “play, passion, and purpose.”
It was about a year ago, said Superintendent Everett V. Olsen, that Westford administrators met with Wagner who “talked…about the importance of the ability for students to engage in play and display their passion, and also (engage in) some structured work to allow them to apply their knowledge.”
Termed a “pioneer” by Olsen, Freeman said she sets aside time each Friday for students to work together. One group had a bag of nuts and bolts, said one unidentified fifth-grader at the School Committee meeting.
“…we wanted to make something out of them so we decided to make a space shuttle from the nuts and bolts,” the student said.
Another classroom group based its project on the Colonial America unit the class is presently studying. The students used blocks of wood to represent homesteads, houses and taverns from early history in Westford, Chelmsford, and Littleton. The wooden blocks will be placed on a map, said the student, and she and her classmates will then make a video of the display using an iPad.
“Projects are sometimes related to curriculum, other times based on student passion,” Freeman stated in an email. “Innovation, problem-solving and out of the box thinking are the goals.”
Olsen and Clery will meet with librarians at the town’s six elementary schools on April 12 to discuss the creation of makerspaces inside the libraries.
So far, the library at the Stony Brook middle school has a makerspace and Blanchard Middle School has shelves on wheels inside its library. The ability to rearrange the positioning of the shelves allows multiple classes to meet and collaborate, said Clery. To date, Westford Academy has not created a makerspace, according to Principal James Antonelli. He did not specify in an emailed response whether the high school, almost at maximum student population this year, has the space for a creation station.
“In order for teachers to embrace the concept, we have to provide the physical space,” said Clery. “Our goal is to have makerspaces in all the libraries.”
Having Freeman voice her experience may help the cause.
“I hope more people get interested. It really empowers the students,” she said to the School Committee. “I’m hoping that they’ll always think about this and continue to grow.”
The challenge inside the classroom arose from having to balance the pull for creativity and innovation with the need to cover required lessons, said Freeman. The answer was “metacognition” — “the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance,” according to the Vanderbilt University website.
“So my ultimate goal really became producing thinkers – kids that wanted to take new risks, new adventures, learn to build new things,” she said.
This story was updated on April 6 to add information and includes more specific information about Westford Academy.
Follow Joyce Pellino Crane on Twitter @joypellinocrane.
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