Flint Hill Makers and Innovation

Christopher Cook

My name is Chris Cook, and I have been teaching and coaching middle school for 25 years. This is my fifteenth year at Flint Hill. Throughout my career I have been a fourth grade homeroom teacher teaching all subjects, a middle school science specialist, a math/science specialist and now a science and makers teacher. While I have only been teaching makers as a class for the last three years, I have always taught science with a makers mentality, even before I knew that word existed. Giving the kids something to think about, and letting them show what they know by building a roller coaster, a musical instrument, or a rocket is so much more powerful than stuffing their heads full of more facts. I often ask myself during a class, “Who is doing the intellectual heavy lifting?” If the answer is, “me,” then I shift the focus so that the kids are actively participating in learning and creating, not passively absorbing information. Maker education gives me the teacher a special opportunity to model myself as a learner. Every day I get asked questions I cannot answer without learning something new. Every day I am pushed to be better, and I let the kids know it. My makers classes at Flint Hill are gamified. The students, rather than getting points and grades, earn experience, levels, gold and honor. Leveraging kids (and adults too) desire to play games, and the enjoyment we take from them, has been a fantastic tool for motivating students to experiment, take risks, while also providing a structure for classroom management. Imagine fourteen year olds nagging each other to clean up at the end of class so they do not take damage, or usually passive “just do the minimum” type children telling each other “...but if we add another set of lights with a different switch, it’s a gold bonus and then we can buy snacks!” That is what I get to experience every day. Teaching a makers program, with the addition of a gamified structure, has led me to learn more about new topics and a new way to teach than I have learned in the last 20 years combined. It has been an absolutely glorious ride so far, and I look forward to pushing myself and my students for years to come.