SHORT ORALS - BREAKOUT ROOM 3 - Creating Virtual Makerspace Environments to Learn Mathematics: Early Childhood Educators’ Experiences
Makerspaces hold significant promise as dynamic learning environments for early childhood education, fostering exploration and creativity. Drawing from the Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (BECE) Program at an Ontario university, which transitioned to fully online delivery, this research underscores the importance of integrating virtual makerspaces in the BECE program. The components for virtual makerspaces were: adapting activities for virtual delivery while allowing ample time for deep learning and pedagogical modeling, providing resources to support making tasks, and establishing virtual learning spaces for collaboration and reflection. The finding demonstrated the importance of technology-enhanced pedagogy and makerspace activities for early childhood educators.