Making Across the Curriculum, an initiative of Agency by Design

The recent surge of interest in maker-centered learning has led many students, teachers, and school administrators to pursue the development of school-based design studios, makerspaces, and fablabs. While important thinking and learning takes place within makerspaces, the makerspace moniker can be seen to be limiting because it suggests that making happens within a particular environment, under particular conditions, with particular tools, to meet particular curricular ends. Rather than contain making to a designated “space” where such conditions exist, many believe that the true value of maker-centered learning lies in its ability to support students and teachers across the content areas. Working in partnership with teachers and administrators from the Washington International School (and the broader DCPZ Network), the Agency by Design: Making Across the Curriculum project intends to explore the ways in which maker-centered learning may be applied in a variety of curricular settings. Building off of the framework for maker-centered learning developed by the Agency by Design research team, the Making Across the Curriculum project will investigate tools and strategies that support students and educators throughout the grade levels and across the content areas—while also considering how maker-centered learning may become more accessible to a wider breadth of young people.