A maker space, also known as a STEAM lab or fab lab, is a dedicated area where students can explore their creative and problem-solving skills.
Unlike traditional learning methods, makerspaces allow students to take risks and try multiple times until they are satisfied with their work. This teaches them to persevere through the process and accept failure.
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is the overall opinion of yourself and your beliefs about your abilities and limitations. It is shaped by your thoughts, relationships, and experiences.
When your self-esteem is too high, it can be a problem because you may become arrogant and feel superior to others. It can also lead to negative emotions and a lack of confidence.
Maker spaces provide students with a unique opportunity to develop self-esteem through persistence and problem-solving. They are designed to encourage students to try new things and experience failures, which helps them to build resilience.
Self-Discipline
Self-discipline is a mental strength that allows you to take control of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Often, this is the key to success and prosperity in life.
Discipline also helps you get and keep your goals. It is a skill that can be developed but it takes time and dedication.
To develop self-discipline, it is important to identify your internal and external obstacles. These can include procrastination, negative emotions, limiting beliefs, laziness, and bad habits.
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are necessary for everyday tasks like grooming, hygiene, and handwriting. This means kids need to be able to hold a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, brush, and other grooming utensils, pick up small objects with tweezers, open containers, use scissors, and more.
With the right tools and space to work on projects, kids can practice and build their fine motor skills in a maker space. This builds strength, endurance, and a sense of independence.
Gross Motor Skills
Developing gross motor skills helps children develop a healthy body and mind, as well as boosting their self-confidence. They’re the large movements your child makes with their arms, legs and feet – such as crawling, running and jumping.
They’re also key to helping children develop their fine motor skills – the smaller movements that involve their hands and fingers. When your child uses their gross motor skills, they’re working on hand-eye coordination, balance and core stability.
Several studies have found that gross motor skills are closely related to language outcomes. However, this relation has been less consistently reflected in fine motor research. This is largely due to the fact that fewer studies have assessed fine motor skills in relation to language development.
Social Skills
In the maker space, learners are encouraged to collaborate and build trust amongst themselves. This can help students build social skills that they can use throughout their academic career and beyond.
In addition, students are given the opportunity to practice their communication skills in both affinity-based and role-specified and teacher-assigned groupings. This can significantly impact their ability to communicate effectively both in and out of the classroom.
The makerspace also provides teachers with the opportunity to develop their communication and collaboration skills. This can strengthen their confidence in their abilities to teach makerspaces and support their ability to implement these activities with students.
Collaboration
Collaboration is a key skill that allows teams to work efficiently towards company goals. It should be baked into the way that teams work, and not an afterthought.
Maker spaces allow students to gain essential skills in this area. These include design thinking, leadership and the ability to work in teams.
The research found that collaborative learning in maker spaces helps increase the knowledge of members and the community as a whole. It also facilitates skill development, venture creation and innovation.