Dive Brief:
- Offering students the opportunity to learn while making has become more popular among educators, but a key challenge is figuring out how to track and document success from the strategy.
- Campus Technology reports making can be meaningful for students because of the social and emotional learning opportunities, the chance to reflect about how they learn along the way, and the path through a generative learning process itself.
- Badges and microcredentials may help lend credence to the maker movement by providing tools with which to identify success outside of a traditional end product like a diploma.
Dive Insight:
Colleges and universities across the country are investing in new spaces on campus dedicated to innovation, making, and startup businesses. Research last year from HermanMiller found that no campuses had a space that welcomed makers, hackers and coworkers in a central location. Georgia Tech’s Invention Studio has space for all three types of people, but it is in the engineering building, shutting out potential collaboration with students from other disciplines.
As more college consider building or creating new spaces, it is important to keep in mind that a long-term goal and strategic leadership are critical to the success of the space. As with so many things, a shiny new room or building is not enough.