If anyone advocates more for student ownership than John Spencer, I'd be wildly impressed. John is crazy about student empowerment and creativity, with nearly all of his blog posts and videos being related to one or both. He has authored 3 books, including his most recent work titled The Launch Cycle (www.spencerauthor.com/the-launch-cycle/).
John is an innovative Social Sciences teacher that implements MakerSpaces into his classroom. I had never heard of this term before exploring his website, so naturally I was intrigued. After digging a bit, I learned that a MakerSpace is a general term for any community space that combines engineering and education to spur inventive mindsets (spaces.makerspace.com/).
John is an innovative Social Sciences teacher that implements MakerSpaces into his classroom. I had never heard of this term before exploring his website, so naturally I was intrigued. After digging a bit, I learned that a MakerSpace is a general term for any community space that combines engineering and education to spur inventive mindsets (spaces.makerspace.com/).
John is all about innovation, whether it stems from the teacher's mind or their students. In his blog post "Makerspace Mistakes," John details how he embraced the makerspace mindset (www.spencerauthor.com/makerspace-mistakes/). One of his colleagues, simply referred to as Javier, introduced him to the idea when John was looking at integrating engineering design into his economics unit. Javier helped John by teaching him to start small and build it up from there - some of the materials or projects can even be free! John's biggest mistakes were waiting for the perfect materials, attempting to complete the project on his own, and innovating but not implementing. Within this post was included this awesome quote:
Something else I found really innovative about John's website was that he includes a variety of ways to engage his readers, much like he would reach out to different learning styles in the classroom. Not only does he include well-articulated text in his articles, but within the posts are a variety of self-made graphics and pictures, YouTube videos, and occasionally podcast links. I love how committed to engagement John is, whether it is in the classroom or on his professional website.
I have to say, out of the people and websites we have reviewed John Spencer has been my favorite so far. His passion for empowering his students and commitment to engaging his audience is phenomenal. It is crystal clear that he is a truly fantastic teacher, especially since he integrated engineering and student freedom into his social sciences classrooms so smoothly. I really enjoyed the concept of a makerspace - it will be perfect for my future science classroom.
I have to say, out of the people and websites we have reviewed John Spencer has been my favorite so far. His passion for empowering his students and commitment to engaging his audience is phenomenal. It is crystal clear that he is a truly fantastic teacher, especially since he integrated engineering and student freedom into his social sciences classrooms so smoothly. I really enjoyed the concept of a makerspace - it will be perfect for my future science classroom.