The Impact Of A MakerSpace

Each January the third, fourth, and fifth grade students in our elementary schools complete a survey that yields data used to move our library programs forward.  Mrs. Haynes spends hours looking at the results of our surveys, graphing data, and reading EACH and EVERY comment from our LC students. She groups the kids' responses and looks for trends that we can act upon.  She then creates a presentation that she shares with our students so they know that their responses and comments truly make a difference to our library program.  I have to give Mrs. Haynes TOTAL credit for mapping out the survey information and following through with the kids ideas and suggestions.

As Mrs. Haynes starting noting trends in the kids' comments, MakerSpace comments started to stand out.  Here are a few of the comments that show the impact that the MakerSpace is having on our kids and their thinking.

• It is a fun based learning place, you can stretch your mind more than you thought you could.
• It has educational things for me to learn and I learn stuff I have never learned before.
• I like learning new things in the Maker Space
• I like that we have a MakerSpace and we can research cool things.
• The best thing is the MakerSpace, because I like when we work together and create stuff.
• It's a place where I can have fun and work by making and researching.
• That we are kind of active, I like it when we do our Rube Goldbergs, those are always fun. The reason I like this is because some schools don’t even have Chromebooks or 3D Printers and stuff like that. So that's what I like about our library
• That it teaches us to work together and it makes it easier to cooperate with each other.
• The maker space because it lets me get more creative at school.
• I like the Makers Space most because we all can make things that work and move because of you.
• I LOVE the maker-space! Never ever take it away!
• I like how we are encouraged to think critically and are challenged to think "outside of the box.
• The things I like about the library is that it isn't just a place to read it's a place to bring out your inner engineer, make what your mind tells you. The L.M.C. is a place to learn many skills for the challenges of life.

*Some grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors were corrected*

So, there you have it...the impact of a MakerSpace and the maker mindset!