The Inquiry Cycle is a tool to support teacher and student learning—and to make that learning visible—all the while exploring the capacities associated with the Agency by Design framework for maker-centered learning.
Agency by Design project manager Jen Ryan examines the use of the word maker and offers an alternative reframing for an emerging field.
This practice first encourages learners to observe the world around them and look for design, “in the wild,” taking a broad inventory of the designs they notice. Then it asks them to focus in on one object or system to consider the designer’s perspective or to propose redesign ideas.
What do we want our learners to be like when they leave our classrooms at the end of the year? What does authentic learning look like in a maker-centered classroom? Your response to these questions might be an indicator of what type of learning you value as a teacher. Inspired by Carlina Rinaldi and her writing on the relationship between documentation and assessment, we used these questions to identify what types of learning or dispositions teachers value most within their contexts. Think of it as a lens for looking at learning. What we quickly realized is that the values educators bring to their work have implications connected to assessment.
Mechanical dissections are a practice that allows learners to discover the often hidden design of objects.
這個思考模式鼓勵學生在一個特定的系統裡思考不同人物的觀點。其目標是幫助學生理解系統裡的不同角色，他們會用什麼形式去表達感受以及對系統裡其他人物和事物的關心。這個思考模式引導學生從多角度去提出問題並表達觀點。
Oakland Learning Community member Ilya Pratt describes her experiences working with the concept of “Maker Empowerment” at a recent Agency by Design workshop in Oakland, CA.
这个思考模式鼓励学生在一个特定的系统里思考不同人物的观点。其目标是帮助学生理解系统里的不同角色，他们会用什么形式去表达感受以及对系统里其他人物和事物的关心。
這個思考模式通過幫助學生近距離觀察某個物品/系統的細節，考慮不同的使用者和利益相關者不同的觀點角度，以反思自己和這個物品/系統的關係來探究其中的關聯性。