This routine encourages learners to consider the different and diverse perspectives held by the various people who interact within a particular system.
In this essay, leaders of the Agency by Design Pittsburgh network Peter Wardrip, Jeffrey Evancho, and Annie McNamarra describe their process of pursuing documentation and assessment strategies for maker-centered learning that are based on the values educators bring to their work in schools and other settings. Using the metaphor of big rocks and little rocks as introduced by Steven Covey, the authors describe the process of identifying one’s values and documenting and assessing student learning from the perspective of one’s values. They then articulate the lessons they have learned and their suggestions for moving forward. The core findings that emerge from this work are: (a) identifying one’s values is challenging, (b) documentation requires practice, (c) one’s values are linked to one’s content, and (d) visibility supports measurement.
Mechanical dissections are a practice that allows learners to discover the often hidden design of objects.
This routine helps students explore complexity by encouraging them to look closely at the details of something, considering its various viewpoints, users, and stakeholders, and reflecting on their own connections and involvement with it.
This thinking routine helps learners to think in the past, present, and future, viewing their making in the context of a long-term and broad trajectory of learning. It is meant to cultivate an ongoing reflective practice in the classroom.
Agency by Design project manager Jen Ryan describes her experience discussing the “maker mind” at TEDxDirigo.
How do you define tinkering? In this post, Agency by Design principal investigator Shari Tishman tinkers towards a definition of tinkering that considers standard text book definitions, examples from real life tinkerers, and a consideration of the “symptoms” of tinkering.
這思維習慣鼓勵學生思考在一個特定的系統裡不同人物的觀點。其目標是幫助學生理解基於在系統里的不同角色，不同的人物會有不同的思考、感受以及他們關心的事情。這個思維習慣培育學生思考觀點與角度，提出問題和明確下一步的研究。
A community of teachers and researchers work together in Cambridge, MA and Temescal, CA to learn more about how students understand design in the world.