For a long time, I've been 3D printer-adjacent; I've been fortunate to work alongside instructional technology and STEAM personnel on campuses, so I knew what 3D printers could do and encouraged students to use 3D printing as independent project formats, but I hadn't managed the machines or designs myself. I started at a new campus this year, and I knew I didn't want the brand new 3D printer to be sitting in a closet, so I went to some hands-on training, built a lesson, and jumped in with both feet. I hope this post can offer some tips and learning to others out there in similar situations! The Lesson
I worked with 15 different 8th grade ELA classes in the library - about half were advanced, and half were "on level." There were about 20 - 30 students per class, and I have nine tables with 4 chairs each in the teaching/presentation area of my library. I started with a read-aloud that was only loosely connected to monsters (I'll take any excuse to share a fun picture book): Alex Willan's Unicorns Are the Worst. The text talks about some characteristics of unicorns, as well as goblins and dragons, so we would be focusing on designing our own original monsters.
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I've done a lot of work with independent study projects, and this video is an attempt to share some manageable ideas about how to incorporate these as a regular, ongoing part of a regular classroom setting. This is a video of an hour-long professional development workshop with tons of ideas and resources - I hope you find it helpful! Apologies for the not super-cute graphics, but the content is a good starting place for all sorts of teachers - those who are trying to answer the I'm Through - What Do I Do question, those trying to support gifted learners through differentiated options, and teachers who want to support students in authentic inquiry - whether it is through Exhibition as part of IB-PYP, or an ongoing process of pursuing what genuinely interests students. As the former librarian at an elementary STEAM campus, I was always looking for useful read-aloud books to highlight books that illustrate creativity productivity. Whether it's the idea generation or research stage, building and refining prototypes, collaborating and exchanging feedback, or persisting in the face of struggles, there are a lot of skills involved with STEAM education and makerspaces. Here are a few titles that might be useful for classrooms, campuses, and families who want to explore maker concepts. Boxitects by Kim Smith Everyone who's ever known the joy of a group project can connect to this story, especially if you're a big ideas person who likes to be in charge. When you already have a vision about what something will look like, it can be hard to acknowledge other good ideas, much less incorporate them into your own work. This story respects and names this reality so that when team conflicts arise, participants can refer back to the story discussion for solutions and strategies. Pine and Boof Blast Off by Ross Burach A celebration of imagination and making that is sure to appeal to young students - and more than a few older ones, too. If you like Pine and Boof, there are more books in this series. And if you teach K-4 kids and haven't done any read-alouds by Ross Burach, run to your nearest library for guaranteed laughs. Be a Maker by Katey Howes The whole book is an invitation to engage in the creative process. It might be particularly helpful to read before brainstorming possible projects or building ideas. Made by Maxine by Ruth Spiro Maxine is shown trying invent something that will allow her pet goldfish to participate in the pet parade. Her persistence and clever re-purposing of recycled objects offer plenty of inspiration for additional projects. My Pencil and Me by Sara Varon This story walks through the writing and publishing process, with an adorable fourth-wall-breaking reveal at the end. Press Here by Herve Tullet Readers can press "buttons," tilt, and shake the book as the story progresses. I Am Bat by Morag Hood If you wouldn't let the Pigeon drive the bus, you'd be similarly protective of Bat's cherries, which mysteriously disappear during this story. Why not genrefy the picture books? It seemed like an obvious move in an elementary school library with over 800 students. The collection was large, new, and up to date, but a fair number of students were not yet reading on grade level. Classroom teachers would regularly request that I pull books for them around a certain theme or topic - especially read-aloud picture books that were appropriate for various grade levels (our campus served PK - 5) - but the books in the Everybody section were alphabetized by author's last name. If a teacher stopped by during lunch and tried to grab a few books on the fly, they would need to know exactly what they needed, or refer to the digital Virtual Book Rooms I created - but never had time to update with the latest titles. When our youngest students visited the library, I made sure to pull some books face up on tables to increase browsability and minimize choice fatigue (it helped the older ones, too). I had multiple displays, including a semi-permanent superheroes area and a semi-permanent fairies, unicorns, and princesses area, and these were hugely popular. I experimented with bins and colored dots and an early reader graphic novel section. And after almost four years of students coming in and asking "Where are the funny books?" or "Where are the scary books?" and explaining that we didn't shelve them that way, I started wondering why we didn't. Genrefication in the Picture Book Sections
I designed a complete genrefication system for my elementary library, and I was ready to deploy it, but I switched jobs before I got to implement it. I know every campus is unique, but I really wish I had been able to see that genrefied system in action, because I think it would have increased student independence, connected more students to books they wanted to read, and it would have been a friendlier set-up for teachers trying to find read-aloud mentor texts. Instead, I joined a middle school campus with a much smaller collection of picture books and completely different needs. One hiccup was that in that in my former district, we did not use Destiny, so we could not use local campus-based sub-locations. Since it's necessary to have the catalog location reflect where each book really "lives" on the shelves (see some of my other guidelines for making genrefication work in your school library), and since no other elementary schools in the district were ready to genrefy their picture book sections yet, there was an implementation pause. Our district library leaders wanted to ensure we weren't cluttering the catalog with huge numbers of dropdown options, and decided to develop committees to have uniform sub-location names. That way, campus libraries that chose to genrefy would have sub-location name options with some standardization (which made sense, given that many of our students moved frequently from one district school to another). However, since I already did all the work of determining the categories and figured out a system for setting it up, I wanted to share what I developed in case it helps other librarians and schools. You can read about my very detailed process for genrefying nonfiction books in this blog post, but I actually built that experience on the process I followed to genrefy the everybody section in my former library. |
Jamie Wright
I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of students and families in IA, CT, NC, MO, TX, and Canada. I love being a teacher-librarian! Categories
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