Events

Hosted by MIT, Georgia Tech, Yale, Case Western Reserve, Stanford, Berkeley, Olin, and Carnegie Mellon

The 1st International Symposium on Academic Makerspaces (ISAM) joins the people, knowledge, and inspiration that fuse to catalyze higher education makerspaces which maximize their impact on the student learning experiences and alumni success. We foster community, networking, interaction, and learning between people who are passionate about making.  This community includes, but is not limited to, student and faculty advocates, upper administration/leadership, government policy makers, educational researchers, makerspace managers, and other practitioners.

Why ISAM? 

Higher education makerspaces impact the efficacy of student learning in fields that include science, engineering, mathematics, music, entrepreneurship, medical/biomedical, architecture, mathematics, literature, and more.  These spaces have demonstrated an ability to foster highly beneficial interdisciplinary interactions and supportive peer communities that extend beyond the boundaries of a makerspace. This nascent field is fast growing, and now is the time to gather people and knowledge together so that resources are best used to rapidly and broadly infuse makerspaces into higher education. ISAM was created to make this happen.

ISAM will gather and make available, knowledge and best practices that may be used to form student maker communities, get students excited about using these spaces, perpetuate a culture of safe, fun, and responsible use, measure/maximize educational and social impact, and to select appropriate practices, programming, safety policies, training, staffing, and equipment.  ISAM believes in providing a balance of different approaches to creating, running, and maintaining makerspaces that yield measurable impact. This is facilitated via:

  • Short courses that cover principles and practices
  • Invited experts that provide insight into emerging areas, concepts, and research
  • Technical papers and poster presentations that disseminate the most recent advances
  • Community discussions around core topics and new developments
  • Community building and networking/making events

Details

November 13–16, 2016

MIT
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

Contact

Professor Martin Culpepper: mculpepper@mit.edu

To learn more about ISAM and to register, click here.

ISAM is a collaborative effort between MIT, Georgia Tech, Yale, Case Western Reserve, Stanford, Berkeley, Olin, and Carnegie Mellon.