Establishing a Maker Mindset with Arts-Based STEAM

This post includes a redacted copy of my NAEA conference presentation on March 22, 2025 and my VAEA presentation on November 9th, 2024. Student faces have been redacted for obvious reasons.

At its core, this presentation showcases how to establish a maker mindset with inquiry-driven STEAM lessons to help students become resilient creative thinkers who can collaborate and solve problems.

The transcript of my talk is below the pdf.

Here is my STEAM wishlist that you can steal to start your own makerspace with family donations. I removed my info, so you can print and start distributing to students. I recommend two grade levels at first so you don’t get overwhelmed with stuff.

Transcript of “Establishing a Maker Mindset with Arts-Based STEAM” by Meredith Cosier

(Opening/Video)

My name is Meredith Cosier and I teach in Northern Virginia. To start, I want to give you a visual of what my program looks and feels like. 

STEAM is unregulated and widely interpreted. I hope to convince you of its value and share some of the ways you can bring it into your program. The resources I’m showcasing can be found in the brochure and or the app with a redacted version of the slideshow on my website. I’ll be expanding on many of the projects you see here, so if none of this intrigues you- here’s your chance to dip out into another talk. 

(Background)

In 12 years, I’ve taught art, digital art, animation, video game design, and STEAM in a classroom, on a cart, in a computer lab, and for a brief stint- and actual art room with sinks. I’ve taught both wealthy and disadvantaged populations in schools, camps, and summer retention programs. Year-round I teach K-6 STEAM at a school with 600 students and 70% free and reduced lunch.

I started teaching STEAM integrated into art lessons and then co-founded a program that co-teaches with classroom teachers outside of the art program. My current program started part-time in 2018. I was teaching STEAM two days a week and art the other 3. In 2021 we were able to reallocate specialist time to open the STEAM program full-time to weekly 1-hour classes. 

(Program Objectives)

My county does not have an HR code for STEAM, so I am contracted as an art teacher with complete agency over what I do. Since I made my job, I’ve made it my job to normalize failure…to create opportunities for exploration…to teach students to value the process over the product…to expose them to a variety of careers…and enhance, but not replace the subjects I’m covering. I don’t wish to infringe on the lessons they do with their art teacher, but nor do I want to take the thunder away from the science labs that classroom teachers have no choice in. 

(Normalizing Failure)

The purpose of STEAM is to grow as a creative thinker who can solve problems while having fun. And posted around my room is the disclaimer that, “Some of your ideas will fail.” The byline reads, “This is normal. You have options. One of them is crying.” Because failure is frustrating; it’s human! It’s part of every creative process.

Two ways I help students manage failure are Acceptable Aversions and Levels of Success. For some teachers, this is a “Cozy Corner” or a “Take a Break” space. For me, it’s the window and the shelf. The window has a handling collection of things for students to touch and manipulate. Sometimes students like to leave things they’ve made for others to play with, like an interactive gallery. The shelf has fidgets, puzzles, and SEL resources. These provide an escape route for students who are having workflow, social, or ideation problems, and they provide me a chance for me to “catch and redirect.”

At times, they are absolutely a distraction. But it will forever be easier to take a child in a chosen activity and help bring them back into the classroom activity, than it is to take a child who has shut down back into any activity. In the case of shut down, these resources are often the first step back. 

Levels of Success pairs with our readiness check, where ‘3’ is the goal. “I think I get it, I’m ready to try on my own,” and “I had success. I know it can be improved.” The first time we do anything, we can usually find improvements- but sometimes you surprise yourself. This is a generic rubric that could apply to any lesson, but I prefer to use it reactively. I set the goal at ‘3’ and then take student perceptions of what they think is above or below the goal.

In this example, we were building a fortress out of Legos to protect a fortune cookie from a weight and drop test. If you can’t read it, Level 1 says “Kaboom! How can I build better next time?.” Sounds like failure, right? But Levels of Success helps us acknowledge that true failure only happens when you quit. And even then- you have options. 

You can become a class photographer or a consultant. You can join forces with another team, and many of my students are comfortable scrapping and restarting because we’re not chasing a finished product— we’re chasing our ideas.

(Mindsets)

The Fixed and Growth Mindset framework is the work of psychologist Carol Dweck, and it’s become quite canon in education. Through neuroscience, it emphasizes that perspective has an influence on our performance. The trouble is, we assume that people have one or the other, when we all carry a fixed mindset in some area of life. 

I’m sure as art educators, you’ve had the experience of someone; could be a classroom teacher; tell you “I can’t draw,” with a smile on their faces, like it’s funny. See- I can tell this is a shared experience!

I like to tell those people, “I can’t read! I tell the students all the time- it’s just too hard!” Just to watch their faces drop. While that’s not true, whether consciously or not- we all have skills we chose not to develop. 

When we look at a Maker Mindset, it’s easy to find connections to the artist. But rather than performance and expression, we’re focused on play and solving problems. Community is central in Maker Education, where students are learning just as much from each other if not more than they learn from me. 

We can widely agree that, “Every child is an artist,”— but every human is a maker. When we make things and solve problems in our everyday lives, we aren’t thinking about the boundaries of subject matter! We are tinkering, finding workarounds, and learning through our attempts. We can’t teach students to assimilate these beliefs directly, because they have to believe them. We can only do this through the conversations we have and the experiences we curate.

(Design Thinking and UDL)

I primarily do this through Design Thinking and UDL. Universal Design Learning is a framework that optimizes teaching for all learners by removing barriers, acknowledging needs and abilities, and creating flexible learning environments. In short, you’re providing multiple pathways for learning. In many art education settings, this is already happening, but CAST freely provides the research and resources of 40 years online. 

Design Thinking was popularized by David Kelley, first in his work at Stanford Design School and later his founding of IDEO. Design Thinking is a non-linear iterative approach to teaching problem solving. It’s humanistic in nature- asking students to first look at the end-user or audience with empathy and then design in accordance. When paired, UDL is often acknowledged as the WHY and Design Thinking the HOW. When we see a process, it’s easy to treat phases as progressive steps— when non-linear iterative design looks like this. 

This can make it difficult or intimidating for teachers to take what they already do and translate it into something inquiry driven and open-ended. When I started combining design processes, maker education, and inspiration from Montessori– I created questions that I wanted to ask kids regularly in each phase. In turn, I created questions to ask myself as I design experiences. If you take this pdf, which is in the brochure, and you work backwards, you can translate anything you do into something that is inquiry driven and as you grow more comfortable- you make it open-ended. 

(STEAM)

STEAM came out of the push for STEM during Obama’s administration in response to our country’s below average performance and projected shortage of workers in STEM fields. RISD had to push back to get the A in there, which is weird because art has never been forgotten before. 

Despite the natural interconnectivity of subjects, it’s easy to have an art curriculum that never strays from art content, so why should we bother? For me, it’s because there is a longstanding and deeply rooted stereotype that any of these fields (STEAM) are masculine and for the “gifted.”

Providing experiences in STEAM for children when they’re young sparks curiosity, it builds confidence, and it gives them a sense of belonging. 

While it stands for 5 subjects, it’s never about all 5 at once— it’s explicitly teaching two or more concurrently through inquiry. Note the “explicit.” Claiming, “My students are using a lot of shapes and symmetry in this project, so that’s math…” is akin to the science teacher who once told me the students were doing art because they colored in their science notebooks. 

If you are not explicit, intentful, and respectful of the content you’re covering— its presence is mere happenstance. It will engage with some and it will fly over the head of everybody else. 

(Serving Steam)

STEAM can be served as an appetizer, entree, or 5-course meal. Appetizers are all over Pinterest. They are single-session experiences that are primarily about exposure of content. Entrees take longer and may dig deeper, but they are primarily about collaboration and ideation with content. 5-course meals are full units or Project-Based Learning that can incorporate these, with the basis of students learning through their research and acts of creation. 

There are enthusiasts who feel we should all be doing 5-course meals all of the time. I find that to be exhausting to both the students and the specialist schedule, so I’ll be sharing examples in all three that you can bring into your own program. 

(3D Forms Appetizer)

In this appetizer, students are building shapes and then connecting them to build 3D math forms. This can be done with prefabricated toys or recycled materials. For my young students, we connect this to structures and architecture. My older students compete to build forms in teams and get points for properly identifying edges, faces, and vertices. 

Building forms makes them tangible. It’s difficult for students to comprehend 3D forms from a flat picture. In art, these could be built and then used as models for drawing in perspective. I like to use them as physical models before we do digital 3D-modeling in Tinkercad.

(Tinkercad Entree)

Tinkercad is a free web-based software for 3D modeling and it’s very teacher friendly. These are examples of starter projects; my favorite is the pizza because it allows for the most creative choice as they learn to use the tools. As we are all one-to-one post-pandemic, it’s worth giving lessons like these a try. It’s okay to learn alongside your students and treat Tinkercad like a digital sandbox. If you’re intimidated about teaching technology, let me emphasize that these are all screenshots of 1st grader’s work from my 2020 pandemic teaching, through Zoom. It will be more delightful than difficult to use Tinkercad.

(Emergency Shelters 5-Course Meal)

Here’s a physical 5-course meal I do with 3D forms. My 4th graders learn about California wildfires and how many people, for financial or personal reasons, sleep in parking lots during evacuations. We’re tasked to build a tent structure large enough for 2 or more people. 

We roll our own materials with newsprint, learn about welder’s joints, and develop plans with our knowledge of 3D forms. Then we take one 45-minute session to build and present to our classroom teacher. It’s rare for students to have the opportunity to build something this large in scale, and they have to adjust plans to create structural integrity. 

I want to point out this group of boys.During the share, one student laid of the ground, his teammates tossed pieces on top and they declared, “It’s designed this way!”

This group had 45 minutes of honest effort, met with true failure… and they giggled! Their failed product did not devalue their learning. This is what it means to value the process. 

(Parking Garage Entree)

Here’s a paper entree connected to 3D models. My kindergartners start with an appetizer day on building 3D paper techniques.  We live 10 miles south of Washington, DC and we talk about the 3.5 million cars that travel around our area everyday and where they park. We look at parking garages and how they differ in design, then we are tasked to build our own in teams. Students make decisions on if they want internal or external ramps, how many parking spots they can fit, and some are even kind enough to create barriers so you can’t drive off the 3rd floor. 

It’s important to remember that collaboration isn’t an inherent skill, and students of all ages need opportunities to practice. But in this challenge, students are also starting to recognize that much of the world around us was designed by somebody, and they can pursue a real role in that. 

(Mazes Entree)

In math, the shortest path from point A to point B is a straight line. My 5th graders create tabbed paper walls and design a maze to disrupt the shortest path. Then we use other paper techniques to create hazards, ramps, dead ends, and multiple pathways. To get through the maze, they have a ball and a straw- to tap like a golf club or blow air- and many areas of the maze need multiple teammates to get through. 

The students are ultimately designing an experience for others, but there is not much STEAM subject content, because the content is collaboration. 5th graders have egos tied to their ideas— learning how to share, combine, and discard your ideas for someone else’s takes practice. This project always energizes a group of students and helps set class mentalities for harder challenges. 

(Animation Appetizer)

Animation sounds daunting for the elementary level, so here’s a one-class appetizer using the website Animated Drawings. Second graders can make a character in an A, T, or Y-pose on paper, take a photo on their computer’s web-camera, upload it to the site, and add a pivot skeleton. While the animations are limited, students have an interactive experience learning some of the basics. 

More importantly, it’s helping them pick up computer literacy skills. Students have a wide exposure to technology, but so much of it is from the stance of a consumer. Watching media, completing assessments, playing games. Generally, the most they are taught to produce on a elementary level is mini-presentations or typed blurbs; and that’s dependent on the classroom teacher. 

(3D Animation Entree)

My 4th graders learn about 3D artists and animators that work to build movies and video games, then we create 3D-modeled characters in T-pose In Tinkercad. We download the .obj files and upload them into a free Adobe website, Mixamo, to add a pivot skeleton. You can see the process in the main video on top. In this, students are also working with pre-made animations, but they are getting a real sense that the artist who renders models and the artist who animates are typically many people within one production. 

There is a learning curve on teaching this unit, but experiences like this help eliminate the intimidation factor when students are later asked if they want to sign up for technology-based coursework in high school, because we established a sense of belonging.

(Computer Animation Entree)

Wick Editor is a free web-based software that allows students to draw traditional computer animation frame by frame. We all start with simple exercises like fireworks or rotating lines, and then I let them play. I’ve learned to teach intermittently; give students what they need to start and then add tool options or skills like backgrounds when it feels right. 

Our goal at ‘3’ is to make a functional animation, ‘2’ is flashing pictures, ‘1’ is “I drew something.” Some children are so excited to draw on a computer that “1” feels like a “5” to them. The collection here is all from 3rd graders at their own discretion.

This one up top is from a summer group of 5th grade girls. We were making public service announcements to bring awareness of pollution in our waterways, and the 3 of them each made a scene about the impact of tossing your trash carelessly. In this case, it was a straw and then a cute baby turtle eats it, and dies. 

It’s a great example of UDL in action, as their peers were making posters and clay sculptures. When you can build your students’ confidence in their own skill sets, all you have to do after is allow choice and watch their ideas flourish. 

(Stop-motion 5-Course Meal)

I used to teach stop-motion on iPads, but ours were recently decommissioned due to age and this summer I found the website Cloud Stop Motion. It allows you to make a free teacher account and then your own sub accounts that have zero student data, so my logins are ‘studio1,’ ‘studio2,’ and so on- with the same password. I can give a team group one where they can build their animations with a web or document camera- and I always have access to it. 

Stop-motion is the most time-consuming of the animations, but you can do smaller entree experiences with modeling clay or found objects. This is the work of one 5th grader in my summer program. We were working on writing stories, combining memory and fantasy. I showed one 20-minute demonstration on what could be done with stop motion and she ran with it. After story boarding, she made backgrounds and characters to create a story of her and her sister sneaking cookies behind mom’s back, being rewarded with cookies after dinner, going to bed with stomach aches, and having nightmares of cookie monsters berating them for their lies. It took her about 5 hours from start to finish, and she only needed me to help with voice overs. 

(Creative Play Appetizer)

Sometimes I like to use creative play to unpack science and art concepts. Here you see half of a second grade class exploring light and reflection with self-portrait mirrors and found objects. We’re investigating what happens when a mirror faces another mirror and angles of reflection. 

I’ve been teaching 1st and 2nd grade photography this year, and this group of boys is attempting to photograph their artwork without getting the camera in the mirror. This is the type of critical thinking that you can’t directly teach, you can only curate the opportunity to allow for it. 

On the other side of the room, half of the class is doing this. Now, you can tell a 2nd grader about transparent, translucent, and opaque properties— they will nod and parrot it back. But if you give them 20 minutes to explore, and then help them connect their observations to vocabulary; they will build their own comprehension and definition. We switch activities within the same class session and then start shadow puppets the next week. 

(Shadow Puppets Entree) 

I teach students how to draw and combine shapes for puppets and then that it doesn’t matter what you draw, it’s what you cut out. We’re working with positive and negative space to create characters and scenery. 

The stage is a presentation tri-fold board with a square cut out and chart paper taped in. I use the clamp lights from the science closet. 

We try to tell cohesive stories, but because of their age and their excitement- it quickly divulges to puppets hitting each other and laughter. However, they take turns learning how to video record their teammates and this video is from a 1st grader. Learning how to hold a camera steady and on the subject you’re filming is a skill some adults never build. 

(Makerspace)

The next few projects utilize our makerspace and I want to give you a few tips for managing one. This was my first makerspace. Do you see all of those drawers? Don’t do that! That was a terrible decision and it never stayed organized. In the bottom corner is my current makerspace.

Small items go in open bins up top, medium stuff below, and I use the poster board on top when it’s closed to prevent wandering hands. In the back of the room is the cardboard corner with smaller cardboard in a bin next to it. Under the back tables are fabric, small boxes, rolls, and cartons. 

I’ve learned to spread things out to prevent traffic build up. I’ve linked the wishlist that is shared with the school to help you gather your own. At this point, most of the makerspace is supplied by families through the year or excess junk from within the school.

There is a science, math, or resource closet in your school that no one wants to deal with. If you participate in helping clear out some of it, or ask what can be taken, you will get a treasure trove. 

The best thing about a makerspace is allowing kids to upcycle and build things that they want to keep or immediately throw away- without worrying about your supplies budget. 

(Mini-Golf 5-Course Meal)

This is a PBL that has students research a country of choice, then design a playable mini-golf course that teaches guests about the country’s culture, food, terrain, architecture, and more.

In these examples from 3rd grade you have France, with its castles, macaroon hazards, and Parisian cafes. Japan with pool noodles turned into sushi. Iceland’s terrain where the ball ends up on the ocean floor. Germany with the autobahn and an accident staged at the beer factory. And this group chose icons of the North American continent. 

Classroom teachers help groups figure out averages and par for their course, and when we showed these at our STEAM & art show, we had over 25 holes for families to play. It is by far one of my favorite PBLs I’ve ever designed, but this one is probably my most impactful.

(Accessibility Design 5-Course Meal)

My father had multiple sclerosis for the 28 years that I knew him, and I grew up understanding that much of the world is not designed for people like him in mind. My students and I unpack the differences that humans can have, and the universal desire we all share to live independently with the most freedom and choice possible. 

We watch children and Paralympic athletes share their stories on YouTube, and they choose who to design for. Students create either life size or miniature, which is a great use for the broken mannequins we all have. 

I’ve had students design prosthetics, including toes to help with balance. These girls conceptualized quick-set casts to support injuries, because the doctor in their home county is far away. I’ve had students who designed Anime-themed prosthetic eyes, so the children who need them can feel “cool.” And one girl created a series of drawings for a cane that connects to your phone’s gps and vibrates, so that you can get around new places on your own; even if you’re blind. 

Design that includes all of us is just good design, but design that makes you feel like you are a part of “all of us” is epic. This unit really shows my students how design impacts the quality of someone’s life. 

(Robotics Entree)

Robotics do not have to be expensive. I bought a $6 kit from Teacher Geek to learn how to make these, and then sources hobby motors from Amazon for cheap. If you add a counterweight to a hobby motor, which can be as simple as a chunk of hot glue pressed into the motor pin- you get vibration. Add in junk and markers, you get mini-robots that can create autonomously. 

Students love these. Some teams will rapid prototype different models, and some will stick with a plan- like the spider drawing a web. It supports the science units for circuits with 5th grade and you can have some fun theoretical conversations about who made the art, which is a nice lead into AI art. 

(Robotics 5-Course Meal)

If you do have robots in your school, consider how you are using them. I can teach Ozobots as a standalone unit, or I can consider how kindergarten and 1st grade already learn about communities- so why not build our own communities for self-driving vehicles. It comes back to the difference of using technology as a consumer versus a producer- or in this case, as a toy versus a tool to produce ideas. 

Students build the land plots and where community building should be. I draw the main road line wherever the team dictates it. They are in control of all the code stickers and we find ourselves asking the same questions professionals have. 

”We have accidents here, we need stop signs. There’s traffic here, so where should we raise or lower the speed limit? Oh look, our car is ignoring the code, so we’ll probably get sued, right?!”

(MaKey Entree)

Robots are expensive though, and Makeys have far more durability and range for multiple grade-levels. A MaKey plugs into your computer, and the computer assumes it is an extra keyboard. You create a closed circuit with conductive materials like play-doh, aluminum foil, or your skin, and the computer thinks you just pressed the spacebar. 

I’ve been teaching Makeys for over a decade. They have extensive projects examples and interactive programs on their website. My Kindergartners have painted interpretively to music, then turned that painting into something that makes music. 2nd graders make upcycled instruments. 5th graders do game-controller designs. This one here is from a 6th grade PBL where we were designing an interactive exhibit for a children’s museum on neurology. 

This design shows neurons, and when they touch- it shows neural pathways to help kids understand how we think and build memories. It was created by four 6th grade girls in 2 hours. 

(Digital Design Entree)

As I wrap up, I want to show you some digital art projects I love. I teach digital design more to give students skills that they can use in any future project, because they are not, in fact,  digital natives. Computer literacy is a huge leg-up in future success, and public education barely teaches children how to type properly. 

I used to teach these food portraits in Google Slides with a series of finding images, removing backgrounds, copy, paste, rotate, copy, paste, rotate. Since my students are now allowed to use Canva; they have a digital library internally, this project went from 4 classes to 1 or 2. Students will often build more than one because they will not stop one-upping each other in their beautiful, and ugly, creations. 

We’re building “pre-photoshop” skills, but also foundational navigation in a web-based software that will be available to them outside of school to make presentations, videos, or a resume in the future. 

(Digital Design 5-Couse Meal)

Each year, my 6th graders end with this. I teach them how to Google jobs they’re interested in, jobs they didn’t know existed, jobs they discover they really don’t want. As graphic designers, we are tasked to create a promotional poster on a chosen job. We talk about work/life balance, how much you can make, and whether they need further education beyond high school, and since my students will attend a high school with a full Career Technical Academy in it- whether there is coursework they can sign up for in a few years. 

Many of my students don’t have the means or desire to go to college right out of high-school. That doesn’t mean they don’t have ambitions of future success. 

So when you ask my kids, my 6ths graders, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Sure, you’ll get a few that say “I’m going to be a singer or in the NBA,”— but you’re also going to get a bank lawyer…a food truck operator…a landscaper…a swim instructor, and a bunch of answers you don’t anticipate coming out of an 11 year old’s mouth. 

Better yet, they have a real sense of how to get themselves there. 

(Closing)

It is my hope that you take something you saw here, and you make it your job. We don’t have the lives our parents had, and our students aren’t going to have ours. We need them to be resilient, creative thinkers who can collaborate and solve problems; and they need us to help them build those skills. Thank you, it’s been my sincere pleasure to be here.