Integrating Makerspaces into the Curriculum - Faculty Development Efforts

This full paper describes three approaches taken by the University of New Haven to support and train faculty to integrate the makerspace into their course content. As one way to promote hands-on learning with engineering students, many faculty and staff support the integration of makerspaces into higher education classrooms. Encouraging students to use a makerspace can result in an increase in informal learning opportunities, additional support for prototyping efforts for project-based learning, increased self-efficacy, and an enhanced sense of community and belonging. As makerspaces are relatively new in academic settings, many faculty are unfamiliar with the capabilities of the equipment in these spaces and may be unlikely to adopt usage of the tools into their courses. With many of the maker technologies not used by faculty during their own studies or career development, additional training opportunities are needed to provide faculty an opportunity to develop their own mastery of both the new technology and specific classroom pedagogy related to “making.” Faculty training for makerspaces is more than just professional development on new technical content. For a successful integration into the classroom, faculty members should consider relevant pedagogy, time considerations, budget constraints, equipment limitations, and the added-value of the maker element to the traditional classroom content. This study profiles three different types of faculty development makerspace training efforts: self-guided exploration by enrolling faculty as members of a community makerspace, pedagogy-focused workshops, and hands-on equipment training sessions. The first effort provided 20 faculty members access to MakeHaven, located in downtown New Haven, CT. With this membership came access to training, mentors, workshops, and a supportive community. To engage with the equipment and resources, faculty were encouraged to work on projects of their own interests and for their own purposes. As their projects were individually different, they needed to seek out the assistance of the expert user; in doing so, they learn by doing, by trying it out and revising. A second effort brought in an external speaker to host a mini-workshop for approximately 18 faculty. The speaker introduced the pedagogy for incorporating makerspaces into curriculum efforts and provided practical examples of incorporation across majors. Participants completed a brainstorming and planning exercise to identify a course and maker-project for implementation. The third effort provided 10 faculty and staff the opportunity to participate in workshops specifically targeted to introduce faculty to the University of New Haven makerspace equipment. Faculty and staff learned about the equipment and its manufacturing capabilities, discussed tips for classroom integration, and then designed and created a product of their own using the equipment. Post-event surveys were completed after each effort to highlight strengths, weaknesses, and future plans. Follow up surveys and interviews were conducted from selected participants of each training type to gather information on the classroom implementation, faculty knowledge gaps, and student successes. These results are analyzed to provide specific recommendations for the most effective methods of makerspace faculty training with the purpose of classroom integration.