Making as the New Colored Pencil: Translating Elementary Curricula into Maker Activities

We present Making activities designed and observed within the formal environment of elementary school classrooms. Using a collaborative curriculum-matching design process with teachers, 8 Maker activities and lesson plans were developed, and implemented in Science and Language Arts classrooms of a school with a large percentage of students from underrepresented populations, over the course of 18 weeks during one semester. Coded videos revealed three categories of Maker activities: those that enabled learning, demonstrated learning, and provided learning of the concept itself. Experiences of teachers and students also revealed eagerness to participate, engagement, and exploration in the activities, as observed in a series of analyses. Other themes include the importance of multi-sensory exploration and ownership of self-constructed apparatuses with electronics. The resulting Maker activities and lesson plans offer strategies for familiarizing students with electronic tools and fostering tinkering while remaining true to the learning standards of the classroom.