Collaboration and Practice

If you want to see collaboration in action, look no further than Communities of Practice at BeAM makerspaces. You will find student staff – known as facilitators – learning alongside their peers as they engage with the makerspace’s many offerings.

Lindsey Pegram ’23 has been a CoP facilitator in the woodshop and textile tool areas for two semesters. As Pegram guides members of each learning group, or cohort, through experiential learning activities, she now understands that being a leader is about much more than simply teaching others.

“It’s really about collaborating with and learning from others, while having the humility to express when you do not feel confident about something and allowing others to help you,” she shared.

According to BeAM’s Education Program Manager Anna Engelke, the program offers a flexible learning environment in which sessions are informal, collaborative and can adapt to each cohort’s interest areas. “Student staff are the first line of support in BeAM, so they need to be knowledgeable and confident in their work,” she explains. “Sometimes student staff won’t know the answer, so they learn alongside MakerSpace users. This results in mutually beneficial learning experiences for both students and staff.”

The Communities of Practice at BeAM are made possible with funding from the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network.

“By the end of the fall 2022 semester, new student staff were on average 82% more confident with teaching others about makerspace tools,” said Engelke. “Students are getting better opportunities to communicate with and rely on each other, pull on resource networks, and practice professional skills.”

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