SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Trent Hamm's Weledeh Catholic School classroom was not your typical learning environment on Monday morning.

Teacher Trent Hamm holds up some of the gadgets from his maker space classroom at Weledeh Catholic School on Monday. - Kirsten Fenn/NNSL photos

Instead of desks in rows and a chalkboard at the front of the class, the room is filled with gadgets and gizmos, a 3D printer, craft stations and programs for coding.

It's what Hamm calls a "maker space" classroom - a new take on learning that's allowing students to explore their creativity without the confines of a regular class setting.

"The purpose of the classroom is to get kids making things," he said.

While it seems most major inventions have already been created, he said there are future jobs that don't even exist yet.

"So this is kind of building the foundation for that," said Hamm. "Knowing a lot of data or content is not as important as knowing how to figure something out, how to solve a problem."

Weledeh opened its maker space classroom for the first time last fall, with St. Patrick High school following suit in February.

But the concept is nothing new.

"The maker space phenomenon is happening everywhere," said Weledeh principal Todd Stewart, referencing an education movement that has taken off in the United States. "It's a change in an education philosophy that wants to give students more choice in how they display their understanding or how they learn."

At Weledeh, every kindergarten to Grade 7 student gets time in the maker space classroom.

Small groups of students spend a little more than an hour each day in the class with Hamm over a six-day period.

At the high-school level, teacher Brent Currie guides students in Grade 10 to 12 in projects like digital photography, gaming, robotics and coding, which students can receive a credit for at the end.

Hamm said students are so plugged into technology these days they need a significant chunk of time to dig into a creative project in the maker space class.

"Sometimes to be creative and inventive and come up with new ideas, they need to unplug a little bit and really have that time to look around and see what's in here," he said.

Hamm helps them do that.

For those having trouble with where to begin, he's posted project ideas on the wall.

For younger students, there are tools as basic as LEGO so they have a choice to work with either high- or low-tech gadgets.

At a "breaky station," students take things apart, Hamm explained, pointing to a pile of electronics and a sewing machine that students have deconstructed.

"They take it apart, they learn about it, they ask questions," he said.

"There's far too little of that - learning about how stuff works and why it works.

"And you kind of have to be able to know some of that to be able to build something new."

While students aren't yet graded in the Weledeh maker space class, Hamm said the key is to give students a place where they are free to make mistakes and learn from them.

Although it's not your typical classroom, students are still exploring issues related to subjects like science, math and technology, Hamm said.

"When you're thinking only about reporting, you're not as likely to take risks," he explained.

"In here, you need to take risks and you need to fail a lot."

He hopes students will learn to see problems in a new light and be able to find innovative solutions to problems not only in the classroom, but in life.

"If they figure something out like a project in here and they can't solve a problem, they're going to want to find out how to do it," Hamm said.

"Me telling them ... they don't care.

"But if they want to find out, they're going to go do it. And that's where awesome things happen."

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