I’m thrilled to be presenting today at the Ontario Makers, Mentors and Innovators conference (ommic.ca). The focus of my talk is on Maker Mindset and how, in schools and in teacher education programs, we might provide professional learning experiences for teachers that will enable them to develop a sense of Maker Empowerment so that they can support their own students’ development as makers too. As part of the talk, I will invite participants to reflect on their own experiences in school and to give teachers advice on how to design learning that would support development of a maker mindset. We’ll do this here, in a simple Google Doc. If you have ideas to contribute, but were not at the conference, you are invited to contribute. Of course, we ask that your comments be on point and respectful, and that you consider the audience — teachers and teacher candidates — before contributing.

And, if you’re interested in viewing my slides, I’ve linked to them here. If you use these ideas in any derivative works, I ask that you not use my family photos. The presentation includes photos of my father and of his work as a maker and I reserve all rights for these photographs. All other work in this presentation however, is non-commercial CC 4.0 licensed, meaning that I ask you to share alike, and attribute appropriately.

Image credit: Leigh Graves Wolf