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Recent discussions of making have focused on developing out-of-school makerspaces and activities to provide more equitable and enriching learning opportunities for youth. Yet school classrooms present a unique opportunity to help broaden access, diversify representation, and deepen participation in making. In turning to classrooms, we want to understand the crucial practices that teachers employ in broadening and deepening access to making. In this article, we investigate two high school teachers’ approaches in implementing a novel eight-week, electronic textiles unit within the Exploring Computer Science curriculum, where students designed wearable electronic textile projects with microcontrollers, sensors, and LEDs.We share teachers’emergent practices in transforming their classrooms into makerspaces, including valuing student expertise and promoting connections in personalized work. We discuss the ways these practices succeeded in broadening access to making while deepening participation in computing and establishing home-school connections. 

Recent discussions have focused on rich STEM learning opportunities and various equity challenges in setting up and researching out-of-school makerspaces and activities. In turning to school classrooms, we want to understand the critical practices that teachers employ in broadening and deepening access to making. In this paper, we investigate two high school teachers’ approaches in implementing the Exploring Computer Science curriculum using a novel 8-week, electronic textiles unit where students designed wearable textile projects with a microcontroller, sensors and LED lights. Drawing on observations and interviews with teachers and students, we share emergent practices that teachers used in transforming their classrooms into a makerspace, including modeling in-progress artifacts, valuing expertise from students, and promoting connections in personalized work. We discuss in which ways these teaching practices succeeded in broadening access to making while deepening participation in computing and establishing home-school connections.