Maker Lab 1: Design Lab

Participation

A class is a place where we study together. Your participation will help make this a great class.

To get full participation points:

1. Attend every class session. This is a short course and there are no excused absences outside of medical exemptions with a doctor’s note, modification from the Student Access Office, or a religious holiday.
2. Don’t be late. Don’t leave early.
3. Do the readings. Come to class prepared to discuss the readings. If it’s obvious that you didn’t do the readings, or made little effort to engage with or try to understand them, you will lose participation points.
4. Maintain the lab. We are all responsible for maintaining the maker lab, closet, and our materials. Help us set up, help keep things clean and organized, help us put things away.
5. Be bold. This is a class about creativity and “making”. We want you to take risks, to try new things. This is not an easy thing!
6. Be kind and respectful. We love a spirited debate, strong opinions, and learning new things from each other. But those practices only work if we offer our respect to the other participants and assume they are operating in good faith, too.
7. Keep an open mind. Disagree with the instructors and other students after fully attempting, engaging, and considering the materials and context.
   Try first, argue later.
8. Communicate. Read your emails. Post on Discord. Talk to your partners. Let the instructors know if there’s a problem or question. Tell us how to make things better.

You will reflect on your participation in your artist’s journal.

• Upload a photo of your week 1 reflection here
• Upload a photo of your week 2 reflection here

Artist’s Journal

Everyone will keep an artist’s journal during this course (and after, we hope). The Journal is a place for you to record thoughts, plan designs, sketch ideas, and reflect. There will be some “assigned” journal entries (see below), but mostly it is meant for your own benefit. Journaling might not be for you… but for the purpose of this course, try it out with an open mind.

To “grade” your journal, you will upload photos of key pages to your online portfolio and post a brief (300-500 word) reflection about how you used it, and what you thought of the journal.

Public Art Encounters

New York is full of public art: famous sculptures, big shows, street art, hidden and half forgotten works, and more. You will document at least 3 public art works that you encounter. At least one of these should be “sanctioned” work and at least one should be “unsanctioned” work.

Document your encounter in your journal with at least one sketch of each work, and notes on the context, your experience, and thoughts on the work. Further document your encounter with photos and videos. Consider things like the medium of the work, the scale (aka size), the materials, when it was created, how it was funded (or not).

Upload your documentation to your online portfolio.

Museum Visits

You will visit (at least) 3 museums outside of course hours. Each visit must be at least one hour long. You must keep journal entries for each visit that log the museum, the date and time of the visit, and key exhibitions or works that you engaged with. You should also document your visit with sketches, photos, and videos. You will create an entry on your online portfolio for each visit. Your entries should reflect on the visit in terms of course readings and discussions, including considering how the museums work as public pedagogy, the learning design, the aesthetic experience, politics of the museum, etc.

You must visit at least one of the following “STEM” museums:

• New York Hall of Science
• MoMath: Museum of Mathematics
• Museum of the Moving Image
• American Museum of Natural History

You can use your library card (New York, Brooklyn, or Queens) to get a free culture pass to many museums in the city. Even if you can’t take advantage during our short course, it is a great resource. IDNYC is another great resource for museum and other cultural access in NYC, and it can double as a library card.

The instructors will post other interesting museum exhibits and events on Discord as well as invitations to join us for informal, optional fieldtrips during the course. You can also check out the NYC Arts Calendar for further ideas and events.

If you join us for the optional Juneteenth field trip, it will count as one of the museum visits and the public art encounters. Bring your notebook.

Maker Lesson

You will read the New York State and professional standards for your content area (Math, Biology, Physics, Comp Sci, etc.) as well as the Art Standards. You will create your own lesson plan that addresses one of the standards from your content area and one of the art standards. Your lesson must incorporate key ideas of maker education and STEAM learning. The instructors will provide links to sample lesson plans as well as example templates for creating a lesson plan.

Plan a lesson for a 45 minute class.

At the very least, your lesson plan must include the following items:

• a brief narrative describing what happens before and after this lesson
• learning goals and standards covered in the lesson
• materials list
• a timeline of activities
• how the lesson will be assessed
• any instructor created materials (slides, handouts, examples)

You will submit your lesson as a Google Doc shared with the instructors, with links to all external materials and resources.

The lesson will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• creativity of the lesson
• alignment with standards
• integration with maker and STEAM learning
• viability of the lesson in a classroom setting

Add your lesson plan to your portfolio to submit it.

Reading Responses

Use your notebook while completing the course readings:

• take notes
• write down quotes/citations
• note sections to discuss
• write a couple

Online Portfolio

You will create an online portfolio that will be used throughout the Master’s in STEAM Teaching and Learning. While the portfolio will house many of your assignments, you are also responsible for designing a site that reflects your identity as a maker and educator.

The portfolios will be created using Google Sites with your Adelphi email account. You will be responsible for maintaining the site permissions and making sure that it is available to the instructors and other students in the class, and that some aspects (at least) are fully public. Everyone is encouraged to use Google Sites, but if you have a strong preference for another platform, you can use it once you have instructor approval.

Your portfolio will be evaluated on how well you demonstrate your ability to use the features of your online platform, you ability to achieve a consistent and professional design and user experience, the quality of your content (well edited writing, thoughtful images, clear audio, etc), and the overall creativity and originality of your site.

Mural Panel

We are going to design and produce a mural during this course. The mural will be designed for a place in Adelphi’s new New York City center, which is under construction at 459 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan.

The mural will combine traditional arts with some electronic/digital elements. Under the direction of teaching artist Eric Miles, we will co-design themes, content, and a style for the mural. The mural will be divided into sections, where teams of 3 students are responsible for their own panel. Every panel will incorporate a unifying motif that connects it to neighboring panels and the entire work.

As a project based “studio” course, the major project will be your team’s contribution to the mural panel. The instructors will giver you feedback on your work at many points during the course. You will work through the design process in many steps, including:

• initial paper collage on the first day
• digital design prototype your team’s panel
• sketches and partial work for critique
• the final panel
• the integrated mural

Each panel must include:

• printed material that is incorporated into your panel
• paint, stencil, sketch, etching, or other construction directly on the panel
• a digital electronics element (LEDs, video, audio, sensor interaction, etc)