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"The Maker Movement has proved itself to be a valuable component of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education ecosystem. The underlying philosophy of this movement involves open-ended creativity, development of critical thinking and intellectual flexibility, as well as instill confidence and a sense of accomplishment. The blueprints for building a makerspace are fairly straightforward, and usually incorporates a few key items like 3D printers, sewing machines, power tools, soldering gear, and maybe a laser cutter. But is it as simple as "build it and they will come?" To help answer the question of "So you have a makerspace, now what?" Jaymes Dec, middle school technology teacher and founder of NYC Makery, served up some valuable advice at our recent SOWING Circle Meetup (SOWING stands for Science Outreach Working to Inspire the Next Generation, and is a gathering for anyone who works as a STEM educator to share resources and brainstorm ideas). In his talk, Jaymes outlined a series of questions to help educators maximize the impact of making in STEM."

For educators, parents and learners Carol Dweck's research on the benefits of a Growth Mindset is naturally appealing. Those who have a growth mindset achieve better results than those who don't, are more resilient and accept challenge willingly. After two years of incorporating a growth mindset philosophy we are finding that the reality of shifting a student's disposition away from a fixed mindset and then maintaining a growth mindset is significantly more complex than at first imagined.

"For educators, parents and learners Carol Dweck's research on the benefits of a Growth Mindset is naturally appealing. Those who have a growth mindset achieve better results than those who don't, are more resilient and accept challenge willingly. In response schools have embraced the notion and classroom walls are adorned with posters identifying the characteristics of growth versus fixed mindsets. Teachers make efforts to shift their students towards a growth mindset and parents consider how they may assist in the process. After two years of incorporating a growth mindset philosophy we are finding that the reality of shifting a student's disposition away from a fixed mindset and then maintaining a growth mindset is significantly more complex than at first imagined. Numerous forces and influences play a role and progress is unlikely to match a linear curve. Where schools have made steps in the right direction, is in raising awareness of the two mindsets. In this regard the placement of posters and discussion around the role that our mindset has in our learning are steps in the right direction. Demonising the fixed mindset is perhaps an unnecessary step and our students may be better served by understanding that we all have times when we fall into a fixed mindset. Education of how we may recognise such times and apply strategies of mindfulness and metacognition would avoid shifting already vulnerable learners on to the circle of shame. Awareness is however far form the end of the journey towards reaping the benefits of a Growth Mindset."

"Once upon a time, only the wealthy and privileged could afford to have their portraits painted by a small, select circle of artists. With the advent of photography, parents of all backgrounds could have pictures of their children, which were coveted as documents of their development and a way to show off their innocent beauty and charm to family and friends."

"This piece was actually sparked by an interview of Lady Gaga by Soledad O' Brien at the Born This Way Emotion Revolution Summit where Gaga stated, "It's time to stop telling learners what to do and start listening for we can do for them." One of those accepted practices, sadly, in most educational settings is that the teacher is the authority to be respected and listened to without question. Listening to students is not a practice that is often taught in teacher education programs. There is a current movement, in some circles, to promote and honor student voice.  But, and this is a huge but, if educators are serious about honoring student voice, they need to first learn how to listen, really listen to their students."

"Do you know, Americans consume 13 billion hamburgers a year, enough to circle the earth 32 times! To keep-up this spirit of Burgers let's learn HTML and CSS by making a Burger."

"Math deserves its own day, don't you think? Join the fun of Pi Day, celebrated on March 14 (3.14, get it?). Here are 31 Pi Day activities that you'll circle back to year after year."

"One of the most exciting parts of my day as a resource teacher and co-teacher is to spend time with students who are in the midst of thinking through a problem and figuring something out.   One of the most effective thinking and learning environments is MIT's Scratch environment. Late last fall, I was working with students in a grade 8 class. Some of them were taking on the challenge of building a working analogue clock in Scratch. Others were figuring out multiple methods by which circles and disks could be drawn in Scratch.  "

"Helping children visualize math is critical to their success in the subject. I recently observed a 5th grade class starting a lesson on area and perimeter. I turned to a girl who was in my class four years earlier and reminded her that she knew the topic. "Yes I do!" she said excitedly. "The perimeter is where you sit along the outside of the rug in morning meeting, and area is the inside of the rug, where the squares are. That's from 1st grade," she said confidently, circling her fingers in the air to represent her thinking. Visual cues, like this one I use with my six- and seven-year-old students, stick and show that envisioning math helps children learn in lasting ways. We teachers can do more to give students internal ways to see the structure of mathematics-to understand types of units and what it means to move between them, and to pull apart and combine numbers. But math instruction is changing. At my school, in the early grades, we encourage children to use their fingers, something that feels so natural to them, to better understand numbers and the numbering system. We might talk about how a "high five" involves using a whole hand, which is really a unit made up of five fingers; while a thumbs-up involves just one segment of that five-part unit. We then go on to using things like beads on a string and, later, place-value disks, which are like poker chips, to help children see and work with numbers, units, and place value."

Constructivism is one of those ideas we throw around in educational circles without stopping to think about what we mean by it. They are the terms that have multiple meanings, are at once highly technical and common usage and are likely to cause debate and disagreements. Constructivism in particular carries a quantity of baggage with it. It is a term that is appropriated by supporters of educational approaches that are in stark contrast to the opposing view; constructivism vs didactic methods or direct instruction. The question is what are the origins of constructivism and does a belief in this as an approach to understanding learning necessitate an abandonment of direct instruction or is this a false dichotomy?

"Hours of footage is uploaded to YouTube every single second. What if you want to download it? In some circles, that's considered a big no-no, but you have your reasons, right? Here's how."

"Have you ever played a name game with your new classes? Typically everyone stands in a circle and the first person says their name, the next person says their own name and the name of the first person, and the third person says their own name, the name of the second person, and the name of the first person, and so on. Can you imagine how the last person in the group feels? There's so much pressure to remember everyone's names. Over the years, name games have been a go-to tool for me when learning the names of students. I noticed that my students and I learned names faster through name games. Now, however, I approach these games differently."

"The phrase "artificial Intelligence" was coined by pointy-heads at MIT in 1955. Back then, it referred to an obscure field of computer science devoted to then-hypothetical programs that could engage in tasks that "require high-level mental processes such as: perceptual learning, memory organization, and critical reasoning." Fast-forward to 2023: While AI has been a murmur in tech circles for the last few years, those conversations really get loud until the commercial release of products like Chat GPT and DALL-e. Now everyone is talking about AI, everywhere you go-hyping it, demonizing it, fearing it-but most of all, misunderstanding it. This is partly because it's a complex subject-we don't even agree on what "intelligence" is, let alone "artificial intelligence"-but another reason so many are getting AI wrong essentially comes down to that familiar villain capitalism. With the explosion in popular interest, advertisers and marketers are using terms like "AI," "AI-powered," and "artificial intelligence" as a selling point so much, they're beginning to lose what little meaning they once had."

Learning programming using Python - from U Waterloo - great for beginners to programming.

"Google Plus is gaining such a huge momentum within educational circles. More and more teachers and educators are flocking to it and this is probably just the beginning. I have been using this platform since its early days and I have learned a great deal about it. I personally view it as a mixture of Twitter, Facebook and Skype all in one place. From sharing resources and links to posting updates to video conferencing, Google Plus has all the features to render it a powerful educational tool."