Agency by Design

Exploring documentation and assessment strategies for maker-centered learning

IN: Arts & Aesthetics - Making & Design

The Framework Field Notes Thinking Routines + Tools + Practices Documentation + Assessment

Educational initiatives that emphasize making, design, engineering, and tinkering have been gaining traction in schools and organizations across the country. While maker-centered learning is not a new concept, recent and emerging trends suggest a new kind of hands-on pedagogy—a responsive and flexible pedagogy that encourages community and collaboration (a do-it-together mentality), distributed teaching and learning, and crossing boundaries.

Agency by Design (AbD) is a multiyear research initiative at Project Zero investigating the promises, practices, and pedagogies of maker-centered learning experiences.

Agency by Design (AbD) is an ongoing research initiative at Project Zero investigating the promises, practices, and pedagogies of maker-centered learning experiences. Maker-centered learning offers learners multiple ways to think critically and engage with the designed world.

There is a contemporary resurgence of interest in the power of making things—in contrast with merely consuming them—and the theme of making is increasingly finding its way into national and global conversations about economics, entrepreneurship and education. While maker-centered learning is not a new concept, recent and emerging trends suggest a new kind of hands-on pedagogy—a responsive and flexible pedagogy that encourages community and collaboration (a do-it-together mentality), distributed teaching and learning, and the crossing and blurring of disciplinary boundaries. Explore Agency by Design’s framework for maker-centered learning.

Funders

The Abundance Foundation and our partners train, support and empower local leaders in communities worldwide to develop new capacities that build lasting improvements in quality of life. We work to promote whole and healthy communities by focusing on the intersection of Health, Arts and Education, and Empowerment. The Abundance Foundation serves as a connective hub to a network of visionaries, innovative projects, and organizations that are working together to transform scarcity into abundance.

CTF Education Group (CTFEG) is a unique integrated education group based in Hong Kong with a network of K-12 schools, school services, education investments, and a charitable foundation that supports philanthropic education initiatives.

CTFEG strives to establish a synergized ecosystem that empowers and engages students, educators, parents, and partners with the ultimate goal of advancing the frontiers of teaching and learning.

The mission of The Edward E. Ford Foundation is to strengthen and support independent secondary schools and to challenge and inspire them to leverage their unique talents, expertise and resources to advance teaching and learning throughout this country by supporting and disseminating best practice, by supporting efforts to develop and implement models of sustainability, and by encouraging collaboration with other institutions.