The resources here are designed for both educator and learner use of the Agency by Design Framework for Maker-Centered Learning. In this collection you will find three sets of resources. Thinking Routines offer several mini-strategies to encourage active processing and build on learners’ background knowledge. Activities & Practices offer suggestions and guidelines for teaching a variety of maker-centered learning activities. The Documentation and Assessment Tools offer a range of techniques and activities that help learners and educators reflect on thinking and learning and be intentional in their efforts to improve the learning process. All of the tools are designed to help develop the maker capacities of Looking Closely, Exploring Complexity, and Finding Opportunity.
A protocol for looking closely at content, considering perspectives and representation, and then redesigning or reimagining that content from one's own perspective. Try out the accompanying Learner Workbook!
A protocol for looking closely at content, considering perspectives and representation, and then redesigning or reimagining that content from one's own perspective. Try out the accompanying Learner Workbook!
This Learn Workbook supports engagement with the Voice and Choice protocol. Created by Julie Rains.
This Learn Workbook supports engagement with the Voice and Choice protocol. Created by Julie Rains.
This practice promotes noticing, play, and exploration. When learners have time to tinker with materials they can gain an understanding of the affordances, possibilities, and constraints inherent in a variety of making materials.
This practice promotes noticing, play, and exploration. When learners have time to tinker with materials they can gain an understanding of the affordances, possibilities, and constraints inherent in a variety of making materials.
This practice is designed to deepen learners’ sensitivity to design through drawing, observing, questioning, and collaborating.
This practice is designed to deepen learners’ sensitivity to design through drawing, observing, questioning, and collaborating.
This practice supports co-inspiration and the cross-pollination of ideas during maker-centered group work.
This practice supports co-inspiration and the cross-pollination of ideas during maker-centered group work.
The practice of mapping allows learners to build and demonstrate their understanding of the parts, people, and interactions that comprise a given system.
The practice of mapping allows learners to build and demonstrate their understanding of the parts, people, and interactions that comprise a given system.
A conversation starter and reflective activity for introducing young people and adults to making.
A conversation starter and reflective activity for introducing young people and adults to making.
This practice allows learners to notice features of an object that they may not have the vocabulary to fully describe yet. By doing several sketches, learners have the chance to engage in perspective taking and to see details they might miss at first glance.
This practice allows learners to notice features of an object that they may not have the vocabulary to fully describe yet. By doing several sketches, learners have the chance to engage in perspective taking and to see details they might miss at first glance.
Mechanical dissections are a practice that allows learners to discover the often hidden design of objects.
Mechanical dissections are a practice that allows learners to discover the often hidden design of objects.
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.
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.
Oakland Learning Community Tatum Omari’s builds on her experience with system redesign to hack her daughter’s soccer gear.
This thinking routine helps learners slow down and make careful, detailed observations by encouraging them to look beyond the obvious features of an object or system. This thinking routine helps stimulate curiosity, raises questions, and surfaces areas for further inquiry.
Agency by Design project manager Jen Ryan describes her experience discussing the “maker mind” at TEDxDirigo.
A rotina ajuda os estudantes a explorar a complexidade ao encorajá-los a olhar atentamente para os detalhes de algo, considerando uma variedade de pontos de vista, de usuários e de partes interessadas e refletindo sobre as próprias conexões e seu envolvimento com o objeto ou o sistema em questão.
Students from King Middle School in Portland, Maine, explain the importance of looking closely in a maker-centered classroom.
Video by Alex Coppola
Educator Gus Goodwin shares how his students engage with the Agency by Design capacities during a design and engineering challenge, specifically highlighting the capacity Exploring Complexity.
Video by Alex Coppola
Featured photo by Jaime Chao Mignano
The Agency by Design Inquiry Cycle has been designed to support educators in the processes of designing, documenting, assessing, and reflecting on maker-centered learning. This tool was collaboratively developed over time, and formally prototyped with cohorts of maker educators in two locations: Oakland, California, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In this paper, Agency by Design researchers Jessica Ross and Edward P. Clapp loosely use the structure of the Inquiry Cycle to describe the iterative process of developing this tool, along with some suggested implications for practice. Throughout the piece, we share the experiences of our teacher partners as they grappled with this tool—tweaking, hacking, and remixing it—as they explored its potential for designing, documenting, assessing, and reflecting upon their work in the maker-centered classroom.
Guest Author Jeff Evancho, the Project Zero Programming Specialist at the Quaker Valley School District, describes the process of establishing the Pittsburgh Maker Educator Learning Community, including the community’s interest in developing documentation and assessment strategies for the maker-centered classroom.