Overview

Taking Making into Classrooms is an online resource that aligns with B.C.'s new Applied Design, Skills and Technologies (ADST) curriculum. It helps instructors explore key components of design thinking, or "making," and consider how they can bring cross-curricular learning activities into their classroom.

The Challenge

"Making" is a new approach to hands-on, experiential learning that encourages students to think creatively and critically and collaborate with others in order to create or build something. It's a big change for many B.C. educators, so we needed to answer questions like:

• What are design and making and why are they central to B.C. curriculum?
• How might maker education prepare our students for the future?
• How can teachers merge industry training with academics and social skill development?

The Approach

At the heart of design thinking is the principle of exploring problems using a human-centered approach - overcoming mistakes and sharing expertise in order to build a solution. That's what we decided to do.

Fortunately, the Innovative Learning Centre at UBC Okanagan and its partners had already created a successful "Making" toolkit which had a Creative Commons International License. Our team of "Makers" adapted this toolkit into an online learning environment where instructors could easily find the tools they need alongside relevant instruction and guidance based on real-world experience.

The Outcome

Since the fall of 2017, more than 200 educators have already started using this new resource to:

• Reflect on their own "Making" experiences
• Develop a rationale for bringing "Maker" pedagogy into their classroom
• Create their own design challenges

Check it out:

• Resource toolkit