When the Canadian Maker Foundation approached us about getting educators involved in the Calgary Mini Maker Faire, we jumped at the opportunity! It allowed us to highlight the Maker approach to learning, as well as to share the stories of some CBE teachers who implemented Maker philosophy last year.

Top five things we loved about spending our weekend at Maker Faire:

5)      Things that explode! Like Coke and Mentos, rockets and more

4)      Design thinking and problem-based learning bring Inspiring Education to life. The educator panel shared examples and experiences that showed how this approach leads to student engagement and success.

3)      The smiles on faces of kids and adults alike when playing a banana piano

2)      The culture of collaboration, openness and sharing that is embodied in the Maker community. Thank you to our colleagues who came down to help with the booth and to experience Maker Faire.  And a “shout out” to Jeremy Lang [@JPLL8]and Brian Simmons [@bwsimmons] who spent their weekend inspiring others.

1)      The sense of "I wonder” – there was an entire building filled with people wondering, “how does that work?”, “how did you do that?” We wonder how to make sure we carry that into our daily work.

We can’t wait until next year’s Maker Faire!

Tracy Dalton [@tadalton17], Erin Quinn [@luckybydesign] and Sanimar Sarpal [@sasarpal] are Specialists with Learning Innovation, who love making, tinkering, learning and creating collaboratively with CBE teachers.

Over the past several months, I’ve been conducting research into the role of visual-spatial reasoning in mathematics. Today, though, I had to step outside of my researcher role for a few moments, simply to bask in the glory of the math learning taking place in a grade three classroom at Fish Creek School.

The task was simple, but mathematically rich.  Students chose one of four challenges that required them to reason, proportionately, about the relative size of the zoo animals they had been working with at Open Minds School.  Students had strewn themselves around the room and were working on the challenge deemed most appropriate and most interesting.  They worked alone, with a partner or in small groups.  There were blocks and chart paper and counters and hundreds charts in use.  Students used their teachers as resources, but just as much they used one another.  Every single student was meaningfully engaged.  And the quality of their engagement wasn’t found in the buzz of activity throughout the room or in the kinds of manipulatives they chose to use – it was most evident in the nature of the questions the students were asking.  The questions showed both self-awareness and mathematical awareness - an understanding of what was making sense, what wasn’t, where they were stuck and what they needed to get unstuck – because the work they were doing mattered.  Learning mattered. 

What did I learn today? I learned, again, how mathematics, offered up to the hands and hearts and minds of young people in rigorous and generous ways, is just stunningly beautiful.  And I learned, again, that in the court of public opinion, intellectual engagement is worth fighting for. 

Alison Van Rosendaal (@boyd_Alison)is a Specialist with Learning Services.  She is passionately dedicated to public education, completely in love with mathematics, and profoundly grateful for the opportunities for learning that emerge through her work every single day.