Activities & Practices
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Field NoteMaker Empowerment Revisited
Maker Empowerment Revisited
Agency by Design Principal Investigator Shari Tishman takes a dispositional approach to redefining “maker empowerment.”
activities and practicesMaterials Exploration
Materials Exploration
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.
activities and practicesVoz y Decisión
Voz y Decisión
PROTOCOLO PARA ANALIZAR DE FORMA CRÍTICA UN CONTENIDO, CONSIDERANDO DIFERENTES PERSPECTIVAS Y REPRESENTACIÓN, PARA DESPUÉS REDISEÑAR O REIMAGINAR ESE CONTENIDO DESDE UNA PERSPECTIVA PROPIA.
publicationsComplicating STEAM: A Critical Look at the Arts in the STEAM Agenda
Complicating STEAM: A Critical Look at the Arts in the STEAM Agenda
This entry offers a critical perspective of the role of the arts within the popular STEAM agenda. Most loosely defined, STEAM can be understood as incorporating the arts into the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) acronym for the purpose of introducing a focus on art and design into these four subject areas. This entry first questions what the A in the STEAM acronym actually represents. The entry then argues that a focus on any discrete set of disciplines prioritizes some domains of practice, while overlooking others. The entry goes on to encourage a more distributed approach to pedagogical practice that is less about establishing catchy acronyms that privilege some disciplines over others – and more about supporting young people and adults in becoming multimodal learners capable of making connections between and beyond the disciplines.
pictures of practiceCollaborative Partnerships Through Systems Thinking
Collaborative Partnerships Through Systems Thinking
Educator Tatum Omari examines the system of educator collaborations and partnerships.
documentation and assessment toolsDocumentation Templates
Documentation Templates
This tool is connected to the Agency by Design Making Moves. The Making Moves identifies three maker capacities that support a sensitivity to design, along with their associated learning moves. Here you’ll find three observation sheets, one for each of the maker capacities: Looking Closely, Exploring Complexity, and Finding Opportunity.
Field NoteJusticexDesign: Developing a Sensitivity to Designed Injustices
JusticexDesign: Developing a Sensitivity to Designed Injustices
Banner image courtesy of Agnes Gómez and her 5th grade students at Sacred Heart School (School year: 2019-2020).
Agency by Design and JusticexDesign (JxD) extend great appreciation to Jaime Chao Mignano for being a thought partner in conceiving of the JxD project as well as to JxD Origin Educators for their invaluable contributions to this work: Agnes Gómez, Angélica Guerrera, Anne Leflot, Ashley Beck, Gerald D. Smith Jr., Maria Fernanda García, Mark Perkins, Nick Loewen, and Sonia Chintha. Thanks also to educators Julie Rains and Lisa Yokana, who participated remotely in trying out some JxD tools during its pilot year. Sincerest appreciation to Edward P. Clapp and Jim Reese, as well as the Washington International School, for their generous and ongoing support in making JxD possible.
thinking routinesParts, Purposes, Complexities
Parts, Purposes, Complexities
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.