Post-it® Notes in the Maker's Lounge #MakerEd

The Maker's Lounge has been my project this year and I'm really excited about the possibilities for our students. While some may see the space as an exclusive spot for STEM and STEAM projects, that is not the case. We really want students to claim the space and tell us what they want to use it for. I thought a simple way to do that would be to ask them.

Post-it® Notes are synonymous with ideas. I've used them for as long as I can remember as a student and they fill my desk with reminders and random lesson thoughts. Students still use Post-it® Notes to aid in studying. Placing them out for students to use was a simple step in getting students to share their ideas. 

I used our MarkItUp Table (It converts from a table to a standing board) to leave students a note. I simply asked them to use the Post-it® Notes provided to leave their ideas on how they might use the space. 

I was not remotely surprised to check back the next day to see the space on the board start to fill up with great ideas. Students want to try their hand at 3D Printing and so many other ideas. One student wants to create a program that can simulate rowing to help the Crew team at our school. He wants to look at coding and see what is possible. I have other students that want to explore robotics and how coding fits in that area of science. There are so many more ideas and it was nice to see students use the Post-it® Notes and place them around the board to match other ideas. 

Not everything has to be a high tech gadget to solve everyday problems. Post-it® Notes will continue to be a vital part of my planning and idea process as a teacher and it is nice to see that it is an active part of the student's process as well. We want to give students as many opportunities as possible to create/make. That is what this space is all about. Post-it® Notes are perfect for letting anyone get the ideas out of their head and on paper. The Post-it® Super Sticky Notes  are awesome because they will allow students to move their ideas around on this board and another board we are working on in the space. 

In a couple of weeks, I will share another way that we are using Post-it® Notes in our Maker's Lounge that allow students to connect, collaborate, and create. 

“I am a compensated 3M-sponsored blogger. Opinions are my own and additional products used in the project were selected by me. ” 

Making Is Not Just For STEM #MakerEd

I'm an English teacher and I'm building a Makerspace. Since October, I've been raising funds and working out deals to put in a Makerspace in our school library. I've been working with our Media Specialist to make this happen and I've had wonderful support from our admin staff. We are close to having a completed space and have chosen to call it the Blue Devil Maker's Lounge. I had a chance to take my Freshmen down to the space to show it off and share with the students what will be possible in the space. While a bit stressful, the Maker's Lounge has been a great project where I have learned many different things from friends across the country and right at home in Michigan. However, there has been some skepticism. 

A week or two ago, I heard that someone had said, "What does English have to do with a Makerspace?" I feel this question comes from a place of misunderstanding. While STEM and STEAM are important and a Makerspace can help support these ideals, there is much more to the space than just 3D Printing and Raspberry Pie. One of my jobs is going to be explaining that to all students and staff once we are open for business. A Makerspace needs to be viewed as something more than the gadgets that fill it. The items do not define the space. The student define it every time it's used and it has a different definition for each student using it. 

Our Maker's Lounge is designed to be a project space for all students. These students can be working on any project for any class and this space will be there for them to work on it. They might not need a Makerbot 3D printer, but they could use the IdeaPaint wall to organize their project. They might need a comfortable place to charge their phone and curl up on a Bretford chair with a Chromebook to do some research. They just might want to explore something completely new to them and use our Post-it® Notes to connect with other inquisitive students. A student club might want to meet here and plan a service project. Anything can happen here. That's the point of the space.

As a project-based teacher, I see the value of collaboration using different media to express understanding. A Makerspace is perfect for any teacher that encourages students to create original items to demonstrate learning. The class subject is irrelevant. If we want to have more thinkers and problem solvers, we need to create more opportunities for kids to create. We have to stop telling students that spaces are for only certain things. It is a major problem in education. For many students, they think learning does and should only happen in the school building. Our students are going to pay dearly for these thoughts down the line if we do not start changing the narrative. 

Another reason I've chosen to work on a Makerspace has to do with 20 Time. My idea in creating a Makerspace would allow students their own guided 20 Time projects. They could freely explore anything that interests them and have a safe and open space to do that in school. I asked my students if the space would have changed what their project might have been, about 25% said it might. That is reason enough for me. 

For those students and staff that wondered why an English teacher is building a Makerspace and sharing it with his students, the best answer comes from a student who emailed me her thoughts after seeing the Maker's Lounge, 

"Hi. I was really interested in the printing and coding stuff today. I would really like to make an app and also think it would be cool to print a camera lens. I'm still thinking of some more ideas but I'm really excited to start working on these kinds of projects!! See you tomorrow:)" 

Keep Making...

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Student Selected Learning Objectives with @PollEverywhereand @PostItProducts

I've been thinking about my learning objectives lately. I'm going for the Highly Effective rating this year for my evaluation. I've been doing very well in many of the categories, but there are some that I still needed to enhance. One of those areas is the role of students in my classroom. I'm a big advocate for student choice (20 Time), but I needed to think of other places I could let students have a voice. Learning objectives seemed like a good place.

Traditionally, I decide the focus of each lesson and unit and how the students are going to approach a certain piece of literature. I post that at the start of class on Evernote and share it with students at the start of class. I feel this is a pretty standard approach to setting up a lesson for many teachers. Having students select the learning objective turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be.

We were starting our Emily Dickinson unit and I wanted my students to do some research on her life. I gave the students 8 parts of her life to explore (Childhood, Education, Religion, Health, Relationships (Family and Social), Adult Life, Writing Career, and Death). Students split these ares up with others at the table and spent the class period doing research. They were to come to class the next day and share their findings. 


On the next day, students were instructed to discuss their findings and decide on what they thought were the 5 most influential events in Emily Dickinson's life. They were to place these 5 events on Post-It Notes provided on their desks. 

The students discussed their research and started to write out their thoughts on the top 5 events. Once they were done, they had to place them on the dry-erase board. I set up the board with 5 slots that matched the color of the Post-it® Notes they were given. It was so nice to be able to color code the information using the notes. Also, I got the extra sticky notes, so the notes could be moved around from desk to wall and all over the wall when we organized.

Once all of the ideas are placed on the board, the class looked at them and discussed them all. I moved them around and grouped them based on shared concepts. Next time, I will have students do this part of the process. It was easier for me, but I think it is better if let them do it. Each class had their own ideas and they explained them in different ways. It made for a more interesting class each time for me instead of leading the same discussion multiple times. This really let the students take the lead and that was the whole point of the exercise.


After the organization of ideas, we went to the voting phase of the learning objective. I numbered each concept the students had grouped the ideas into and created a PollEverywhere so students could vote anonymously from their mobile devices. It was a very quick poll and it only took a few minutes at most. The kids loved having the chance to use their mobile device and have a say in how they were going to learn for this unit.


Each class had different ideas and a different discussion. When the dust settled, different classes chose different learning objectives. While some might view that as more work for me to prepare different class discussions for group of students, it really will not be more work. The students are invested in the class discussion because they have ownership of their learning objective. They will be the ones that are going to lead class discussion because they know exactly how they are going to approach the topic because they chose it. I really see this as a great way to get more students involved in class ownership and look forward to trying out in other units.


Other Use Cases:

Using Poll Everywhere and Post-it® Notes does not have to be confined to the ELA classroom. Their are applications for these great tools in all classes.

Science Classroom: One of the best parts of Science can be guessing. That is what experimenting is all about. Having students look a a problem in class, write down how they think the problem can be solved using Post-it® Notes, and then use Poll Everywhere to choose the best guess is a great way to get students thinking about Science.

Once the students do the experiment, they can get back together and write their ideas down on Post-it® Notes and see if they all understood what just happened. The process can be repeated multiple times for any number of experiments:

Math Classroom: Post-it® Notes are perfect for quick problem solving and sharing. A teacher can place a problem on the board and have students do the work on the Post-it® Notes and run and place them on the board. Students can then review the work and see if the answer matches up.

Students could also use Post-it® Notes and Poll Everywhere as a way to let the teacher know what they want to focus on for the day in class. By writing down the problems they had trouble with or the concepts that they are are still struggling to understand, Poll Everywhere could be used by the class to focus on one area without students feeling embarrassed about not knowing something.

Tools Used:

Poll Everywhere was a great addition to my classroom. I have used it in sessions at conferences, but I have not really used it in the classroom. It was so easy to set up and I the students loved the quick feedback in class. If you do not have an account, sign up and use it with your students when you need to collect some information. They are also really awesome on Twitter, so give them a shout out if you have any questions about using Poll Everywhere in the classroom.

Post-it® Notes have always been a big part of my life. I use them for so many different things, there really isn't time to go over them all. Post-It Notes allowed me to quickly get the information from my students and have them share it with the rest of their table and then place it on the board for easy grouping. The extra sticky notes were perfect and stayed securely to the whiteboard in the back of my room. I think teachers all over use Post-It Notes and there are tons of fun and creative ways to use them in the classroom.

“I am a compensated 3M-sponsored blogger. Opinions are my own and additional products used in the project were selected by me. ”