Better networking, securing grant funding, more PD time, increased support from administrators, and finding ideas for lesson plans are some of the biggest needs of educators using maker spaces, according to a new study released last month.
The “maker movement,” or projects that encourage students to learn by building, designing, and tinkering with various hands-on tools, is seeing a spike in adoption in recent years. The increasing popularity of the approach has led researchers to take notice and measure what motivates teachers to build makerspaces, and what they need to advance their efforts.
The study, “Communities for Maker Educators” was released by SRI international, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit and compiled insights from an online survey of nearly 500…