The AbD Making Moves are a set of observable or actionable “moves” that learners and educators can use to help design maker-centered learning experiences, and to support, observe, document, and assess maker-centered learning.
The routine helps students explore complexity by encouraging them to consider that people may have different experiences with and perspectives on the same object or system. This routine also encourages students to think more carefully about how the object or system impacts their lives and the lives of others.
Agency by Design project manager Jen Ryan describes her experience discussing the “maker mind” at TEDxDirigo.
Agency by Design researcher Jen Ryan explores some of the central ideas from the framework at TEDxDirigo Generate.
This entry offers a critical perspective of the role of the arts within the popular STEAM agenda. Most loosely defined, STEAM can be understood as incorporating the arts into the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) acronym for the purpose of introducing a focus on art and design into these four subject areas. This entry first questions what the A in the STEAM acronym actually represents. The entry then argues that a focus on any discrete set of disciplines prioritizes some domains of practice, while overlooking others. The entry goes on to encourage a more distributed approach to pedagogical practice that is less about establishing catchy acronyms that privilege some disciplines over others – and more about supporting young people and adults in becoming multimodal learners capable of making connections between and beyond the disciplines.
A resource for learners to explore the ways you can use the Agency by Design Framework and Making Moves/Indicators.
Synthesizing recent conversations between AbD and the Oakland Leadership Team, AbD researcher Andrea Sachdeva proposes a values-based stance on documentation and assessment in maker-centered learning.
An easy reference handout of the Agency by Design Framework for Maker-Centered Learning.
High School technology students in Darlease Monteiro’s class use Parts, Purposes, Complexities to analyze website apps prior to designing their own.