Session 4: Pedagogy

Download and print out the Learning Tool, grab some chart paper, and watch these brief videos before reading through the activity.

Framing

Those of us who design and facilitate maker-based learning experiences often have a difficult time talking about the learning in those experiences. We might see learners building cool things or working with neat tools, but we often do not have the language or perspective to describe or measure the learning taking place. The goal of this activity is to enable participants to create an evidence-centered framework for learning related to at least one maker-based activity.

The Learning Tool focuses on the evidence of learning an organization hopes to design to support and see when a learner engages in a maker activity. This is based on Evidence-Centered Design, which is an approach to designing assessments that puts the evidence of learning as the central facet of the learning (and assessment) design.

This approach is meant to encourage two aspects of design:

1. It encourages the participant to identify learning goals for a particular activity. Identifying a goal might be broad like fostering creativity or STEM learning; or very specific, like recognizing the polarity of a magnet.
2. It compels the educator to define the goal by what evidence of learning for that goal looks like. As an example, if collaboration is a goal of a learning experience, then the educator would have to generate examples of what it would look like or sound like to collaborate.

Check out http://makingandlearning.org/ for examples of evidence-based frameworks for maker-based learning.

Introduction to the Tool

Guide for Using the Tool

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