Challenge-Based Learning in the School Library Makerspace

An invaluable how-to text that details the workshop model, addresses the design challenges, and explains the best avenues for curriculum-based learning in the school library makerspace.

A successful school makerspace needs an enthusiastic maker community, school-wide participation, and staff support. How do you build this type of learning at your school? The innovative team behind Challenge-Based Learning in the School Library Makerspace addresses common questions and concerns and describes step-by-step how to introduce challenge-based learning into the school library makerspace.

Intended for librarians and school staff who have already started thinking in terms of makerspaces but need further help sustaining programming and want to know more about Makerspace 2.0, this helpful guide details the workshop model, various real-world design challenges, and the process for implementing curriculum-based learning in the school library makerspace. Readers will be empowered to go beyond the initial implementation of a makerspace and to draw from an arsenal of proven methodologies for designing challenges for student learning. Additionally, the book enables the addition of curriculum connections to library programming, shows how to connect your students to local experts and the global maker community, and eases you into more productive collaboration with other librarians.

• Explores crowdsourced research methods that lead to authentic participatory learning

• Ensures that student-led workshops and design challenges result in tremendous success

• Supplies practical tips that can be applied by beginner maker-librarians and provides curricula suggestions for advanced maker-librarians

• Explains how to incorporate design thinking, empathy building, and problem solving with design challenges that spur student creativity