Training educators for the FabLab
As an assistant professor of instruction in Spanish, Amy Austin has found the array of technology available in the FabLab at The University of Texas at Arlington to be a great learning tool for her Spanish Culture and Civilization course.
“The FabLab is for far more than STEM courses,” Austin said. “It can enhance humanities subjects as well and help students connect to the course material and distant ideas.”
Now, more educators and students will get the opportunity to incorporate makerspaces and technologies into course materials, thanks to a $241,845 grant for faculty training from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The FabLab and UTA Libraries’ Department of Experiential Learning and Undergraduate Success will work in partnership with the University of Nevada Reno, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and seven other institutions to create curriculums and improve learning outcome assessments. The goal is to improve programming aimed to educate staff and faculty on using makerspaces for a wide variety of subjects, from STEM to liberal arts.
“Our hope for UTA is to empower students as creators, and for the University as a whole to embrace the library as a partner in doing so,” said Gretchen Trkay, department head for Experiential Learning & Undergraduate Success at the UTA Libraries. “We want students and faculty to understand the power of the FabLab. And we want our support and resources for innovation to be the first thing they think of when they think of the UTA Library—that we’re not just a place for books.”
This semester, approximately 15 UTA courses plan to use the FabLab in their course work, in disciplines ranging from engineering and social work to English, communications, art and modern languages.
“Our FabLab has been a leader in connecting maker services to campus needs,” said Katie Peery, director of the UTA FabLab. “We want other schools around the country to continue to turn to UTA as a model for best practices for fabrication labs and makerspaces.”
The UTA FabLab is an 8,000-square-foot fabrication lab, or makerspace, filled with technologies and equipment for project-based, hands-on, experiential learning. It opened in 2014 and began as an outreach project from the Center for Bits and Atoms at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It offers a wide range of tools, from 3D printers, laser cutters and sewing machines to woodworking equipment, software for digital creation, computer animation and virtual reality projects.
Each semester, Austin’s students use the FabLab’s resources to create screen-printed T-shirts, woodworking projects, 3D-printed concepts, embroidered clothing and other hands-on projects related to the curriculum. She says the assignment allows for creativity and critical analysis of culture—and provides students opportunities to use technologies and equipment not typically found in a classroom setting.
“I’ve seen students go from fear of an unknown technology to, in most cases, a mastery of it,” Austin said. “A new skill like that gives them such a boost of confidence. It fills me with absolute pride.”