The Center for Educational Innovation & Opportunity offers professional learning events designed to support educators, administrators, and community partners in advancing student success. Through workshops, trainings, and collaborative programs, participants gain practical strategies, new perspectives, and opportunities for professional growth. Explore upcoming events and learning opportunities below to connect, engage, and expand your impact.
Innovation Webinar Series: Lab School Spotlight - Makerspace in Action
"Lab School Spotlight: Makerspace in Action" will explore how maker-centered learning is helping students design, build, problem-solve, and develop future-ready skills across Virginia’s lab school ecosystem.
This session will highlight how makerspaces are more than rooms filled with tools. They are learning environments that support creativity, collaboration, confidence, experimentation, and real-world problem solving. Participants will hear how the Innovation Lab at the ODU Center for Educational Innovation and Opportunity serves as a hands-on hub for extending lab school work through STEM, fabrication, design thinking, robotics, coding, and community-connected learning experiences.
The conversation will also connect directly to how makerspace practices are showing up in lab schools, including how students engage in open-ended challenges, prototype solutions, learn from failure, and build the confidence to see themselves as innovators.
Webinar: Innovations in Action: Lab School Spotlight — Makerspace in Action
Date: Wednesday, July 29th
Time: 3:00 p.m.
Location: Zoom Webinar | Registration Link
Featured Speaker: Kaitlyn McCoy, Assistant Director, ODU Center for Educational Innovation and Opportunity
Cost: $85/per person
Join us for a conversation about how makerspaces can support inquiry, accessibility, student voice, career-connected learning, and innovation across Virginia lab schools
Makerspace for Educators
Who: Kaitlyn McCoy and Robert Doherty
When: Every Tuesday from October 13, 2026 - November 17, 2026 (6:00 PM - 7:30 PM)
Where: Zoom | Registration Link
The Makerspace for Educators Microcredential is a fully virtual professional learning experience designed for educators who want to create, strengthen, or sustain inclusive makerspace learning environments. This six-module series introduces participants to makerspace design, Universal Design for Learning, accessibility, digital and physical tools, design thinking, safety procedures, community partnerships, and long-term sustainability.
Participants will attend six live Zoom sessions and complete applied deliverables after each module. Each deliverable will build toward a final Makerspace Implementation Portfolio that participants can use to support planning, implementation, or improvement of a makerspace in their own school, library, classroom, or community learning environment.