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What is the makeSPACE blog?

Our blog posts allow you to wade into the makeSPACE approach and peer around with your goggles and snorkel on. We share relevant research, strategies, ideas, stories, and perspectives to enrich your experience in this project. Our posts place key concepts, such as metaphor, from makeSPACE into the world around us. You will get to know the makeSPACE team through our own stories and experiences of creative engagement in life. Take a gander and share your thoughts.

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Read the Latest

fishing bird

Excellent work in the makeSPACE Foundation Course!

We thoroughly enjoy reading your Routine Adaptations as they come up for review. There are so many inspired ideas and great classroom insights. We thought we would share this particularly interesting adaptation from one of our Arts Rich Philadelphia teachers.

Why Curiosity

INTRODUCING NEW MAKESPACE CURRICULUM

Creative Engagement for Health

Creative Engagement Lab celebrates the release of its newly developed social-emotional learning curriculum, Creative Engagement for Health!

Visualization of action-research data by makeSPACE teacher

CONGRATS TO OUR FIRST ADVANCED COHORT

A celebration of creative risk-takers

Risk required for makeSPACE Advanced Arts Integration Design course.

What are we celebrating

REINVIGORATING THE DESIRE TO TEACH THROUGH CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT IN EDUCATION

Moving makeSPACE Forward

What are we celebrating?

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MAKESPACE IN ACTION!

Reflecting on deeper learning

We recently had the great pleasure of attending and presenting at the Deeper Learning Conference in San Diego. Here's what we learned.

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CREATIVITY AND JOY

Well-being and creativity

Read the findings from the makeSPACE Team's own research study to learn more about how to set conditions for creative growth amidst the challenges of an isolating winter in the time of COVID.

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FINDING JOY

The labor of delight

In July 2018, poet, teacher, and author Ross Gay had an idea—what might happen if he wrote about something he found delightful as a daily practice for a whole year straight.

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TEACHERS

Billy loves his bees!

Artcore teacher, Billy Hughes, recently created a video for the Network Charter School Showcase, a typically live celebration of school community talent and interests that has pivoted to a youtube video share in these Covidian times. It was all about his love of bees!

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Making space for racial justice

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi recently said the racism we have all experienced and unconsciously internalized is like being rained on (with racist ideas around us) without ever knowing we were wet. When someone tells us that an idea or statement is racist, it’s like someone offering an umbrella and telling us we are wet, as we stand unaware of being soaked by the rain.

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More on Reflection

Arts integrated reflection is a core practice in makeSPACE. Check out this blog post for examples of how regular engagement in reflection helps students own their learning and grow their creative resources.

Making space for emotions

Making Space For Emotions

Humans cope with storm clouds by finding silver linings. This helps us persevere. But the true stories of lives and communities are loaded with a complex spectrum of emotions that are also worthy of our attention.​

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Why Reflection?

According to philosopher, John Dewey, we don’t learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience. What exactly is reflection and why is it important? How can we reflect intentionally and effectively?

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A Time to Rekindle Joy

In the following video, founding MakeSPACE member Ross Anderson breaks down the importance of joyful experiences both in the classroom—and beyond. How can you bring joy into your classroom?

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Why Metaphor?

We all know authors use metaphors to brighten up stories, but what role do they play in our everyday lives and how can we use them to convey information and open minds to new ways of thinking?

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Voices From Our Community

We've spent the last few months building the makeSPACE story. Along the way, we've asked questions and listened to our community of teaching partners. As we move forward, we'll continue to listen.

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Creative Routines

Creative routines help us establish the conditions for how we engage in mental challenges. To shape a creative classroom environment, they provide an accessible entry point... and endless possibilities.

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Meet Denise

Committed to bringing out the best in all of her students, Denise uses both personal experience and accumulated knowledge to bring her classes to life. And she engages her creativity every day. This is her story.

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True Beginners

There is a particular feeling--sharp, sweet, uncertain, and surprising--that we experience as a true beginners. We feel it when I fumble at trying something new. It is the sensation of terror co-mingled with joy.

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How are you Creative?

Societally, we have come to believe that only some people are capable of creativity. From this vantage, you're either born with creative traits and talents or not. But are things a bit more nuanced? Let's explore this idea further!

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Our Vision

The makeSPACE story began with a simple vision: to bring creative engagement to classrooms across the country.

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Welcome to makeSPACE

Welcome to the MakeSPACE story. We're thrilled to join you on this journey into new realms of creative engagement.

Contact Us

Contact us if you’re interested in learning more about the current grant opportunity or about the makeSPACE project.