Category Archives: ACM

ACM Maker Workshop

As part of the generous Faculty Career Enhancement Grant we received from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) to get our makerspace up and running, we also had funding to host a 3D printing workshop for interested participants from fellow ACM schools. This workshop took place on the Lawrence University campus on August 4-5, 2016.

Bryan Alexander discusses 3D printing in liberal arts education.

The purpose of this workshop was to introduce 3D printing pedagogy to educators who may be interested in integrating it into their teaching and work. The workshop began with an informative and engaging presentation by Bryan Alexander, entitled, “3d Printing Across the Curriculum: From Liberal Education to the Replicator” (slides available in Lux or see the recording.) Other activities included a discussion of experiences with pedagogical applications of 3D printing, as well as hands-on design time to become acclimated to the technologies of 3D printing. The entire schedule is available at the workshop page.

Participants discuss pedagogical applications of 3D printing.

Participants came from eight different schools and a wide range of academic disciplines. Areas represented included, museum studies, education, art, English, chemistry, library, music, theatre, administration, and more! While the participants had differing academic backgrounds, there were many overlapping interests and concerns that led to some very enriching discussions.

Participants get hands-on experience with 3D modeling.

Photos from the event can be found in our workshop Flickr album. Some workshop highlights and more photos can be found at #ACMMAkers16 on Twitter. This workshop was a wonderful opportunity for educators to come together to share knowledge, to become comfortable with exciting technologies, and to make some new connections. Those of us who planned the conference are grateful to everyone involved for making it such a great experience!

Coming Soon!

We are very pleased to announce that we’ve received a Faculty Career Enhancement grant from the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) to create a makerspace for engaged learning on campus.

Here’s an excerpt from our proposal:

In higher education, the challenge is to move students toward ever-greater intellectual autonomy and self-confidence. The traditional college model of learning through lecture, however, neither allows students experiential, hands-on learning, nor nurtures initiative. Students need curricular opportunities to move from passive receivers of information, to engaged producers and creators.

This project aims to address these issues by installing a makerspace at the Lawrence University library as a resource to innovate teaching and learning across the ACM through the integration of maker pedagogies into course offerings and course design.

A makerspace is any space that contains technologies and tools to allow for creative design and experimentation. Maker pedagogies are the methods that instructors use to integrate the makerspace into teaching and learning. Libraries and educational institutions all over the world have welcomed makerspaces as an innovative intersection of technology, learning, and experimentation.

Read more at the ACM website.

The plan is to spend summer and fall setting up and developing teaching strategies and workflows, and begin using the space with classes in Winter term 2016.

This website will be updated as we set up the space and create content. We will use this site as a way to share assignments, instructions, procedures, patterns for 3D objects, pictures, and more.

We are very excited about this opportunity provided to Lawrence University students by the ACM, and are looking forward to sharing what we learn!