An easy reference handout of the Agency by Design Framework for Maker-Centered Learning.
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Field NoteWhen a Ship is not a Ship—It’s a Sabre-toothed Cat! A Story of Maker Empowerment and Collective Agency
When a Ship is not a Ship—It’s a Sabre-toothed Cat! A Story of Maker Empowerment and Collective Agency
Ilya Pratt, AbD Oakland Leadership Team member and Design+Make+Engage program director at Park Day School, tells a tale of maker empowerment and collective agency through the story of Kyle and the saber-toothed cat.
thinking routinesPartes, Personas, Interacciones
Partes, Personas, Interacciones
Esta rutina de pensamiento ayuda a los estudiantes a ir lentamente y observar de cerca un sistema.
Field NoteUnderstanding Agency Part II: Putting an Abstract Concept into Action
Understanding Agency Part II: Putting an Abstract Concept into Action
AbD researchers describe how their use of agency “vignettes” help them gain new understandings around the concept of agency.
Field NoteDeveloping a Sensitivity to the Design of Teacher Learning Communities
Developing a Sensitivity to the Design of Teacher Learning Communities
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.
publicationsParticipatory Creativity: Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom
Participatory Creativity: Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom
Participatory Creativity: Introducing Access and Equity to the Creative Classroom presents a systems-based approach to examining creativity in education that aims to make participating in invention and innovation accessible to all students. Moving beyond the gifted-versus-ungifted debate present in many of today’s classrooms, the book’s inclusive framework situates creativity as a participatory and socially distributed process. The core principle of the book is that individuals are not creative, ideas are creative, and that there are multiple ways for a variety of individuals to participate in the development of creative ideas. This dynamic reframing of invention and innovation provides strategies for teachers, curriculum designers, policymakers, researchers, and others who seek to develop a more equitable approach towards establishing creative learning experiences in various educational settings.
Field NoteTaking Apart to Build Stories of Change
Taking Apart to Build Stories of Change
This piece is based on a workshop titled “Taking Apart Racism: Using Maker-Centered Practices to Break Down Systems of Oppression,” led by Jaime Chao Mignano and Mark Perkins at the National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference (PoCC).
Like a lot of educators, I want my students to be empowered to impact the world around them. I want them to have social and political agency in a sense that is perfectly aligned with what Agency by Design means by agency—that is, skills and tools in combination with intention and impulse to action. When I task my students with dismantling systems of oppression, how do they know what that means? Do they feel ready to enact it? And how can I be a support?
This was the seed of a workshop for this year’s National Association of Independent Schools People of Color Conference (PoCC), a gathering of thousands of educators from around the United States to explore ideas and share experiences around equity and justice in our schools and lives. My colleague, Mark Perkins (Media and Theater Coordinator), and I wondered what insights we could offer by putting Take Apart practice in service to racial justice education. I was nervous to try to build under the conference throughline “Anti-Racist Teaching Tools” - the stakes felt so high. We had an inkling, though, that combining the enthusiastic engine of taking stuff apart with the resonant act of creating stories that reimagine existing narratives of power could be an important experiment.
Mark and I built a workshop we call “Taking Apart Racism: Using Maker-Centered Practices to Break Down Systems of Oppression.” The heart of the workshop is the idea that looking closely and exploring the complexity of an object can create a bridge of metaphor that helps us understand a system of racial oppression. If we build the connection between these two systems—the system of the object and the system of oppression—then we can see the oppressive system in a new light and probe new possibilities.
thinking routinesParts, Purposes, Complexities - Adapted for Early Childhood Education
Parts, Purposes, Complexities - Adapted for Early Childhood Education
This routine encourages learners to slow down and make careful, detailed observations as they look beyond the obvious features of an object or system and think about how it works. This thinking routine can help foster curiosity as children notice details, ask questions, make connections, and identify topics for future inquiry.
thinking routines“深入拆解” 的思考模式
“深入拆解” 的思考模式
這個思考模式通過讓學生慢慢、細心地觀察物件和系統中的細節，鼓勵他們不止觀察物件的表面特徵，更重要的是了解其內部運作。這個思考模式可以激發學生的好奇心，鼓勵他們勇於提出問題，並且能做更深入的研究。