Maker Learning is Powerful Learning

At Digital Promise, we believe all learners should have the opportunity to engage in Powerful Learning. These principles guide our work to close the Digital Learning Gap by ensuring learning experiences are personal and accessible, authentic and challenging, collaborative and connected, and inquisitive and reflective.

Maker learning, while in many ways still a grassroots movement, has become increasingly common in schools around the world. Since March 2016, over 2,000 schools and educators have signed the Maker Promise to register their commitment to providing maker learning experiences for all students.

We believe maker learning is Powerful Learning because it is:

• Personal & Accessible: effective maker learning experiences provide students with opportunities to invest in and make decisions about their path and product;
• Authentic & Challenging: student projects serve their communities and prepare them to become the next generation of leaders and change-makers;
• Collaborative & Connected: students work together to create products as learning artifacts that can be shared locally or even globally; and
• Inquisitive & Reflective: students ask questions, identify problems, investigate and create solutions, and reflect to iterate on their designs.

To better support all educators in creating powerful maker learning programs, we are unveiling our updated Digital Promise Maker Learning Leadership Framework. Originally launched in November 2017, the Maker Learning Leadership Framework supports educators’ maker learning programs.

Whether you are a teacher creating maker learning experiences while advocating for their growth throughout your school, or a superintendent of a school system looking to improve and expand an already successful program, the Maker Learning Leadership Framework can help you develop a sustainable maker learning program that serves all your learners.

Informed by our work with national and regional leadership cohorts of maker educators, as well as thought partners, researchers, and practitioners from around the world, the Framework has been redesigned and expanded to highlight resources, strategies, and models focused on:

• Building Support Systems between administrators, teachers, and the community;
• Teaching and Learning that melds core content and maker-centered facilitation and assessment practices, and  for students to construct new knowledge; and
• Acquisition and Allocation of the funds, spaces, and tools necessary to effectively facilitate maker learning programs.

We invite you to explore the Maker Learning Leadership Framework and use the tools and examples it contains to help you create Powerful Learning experiences and integrate maker learning. We also know that even with the best resources, building a program that is sustainable and equitable can be an ambitious challenge. Please share your experiences with us and see how we can work with you to support maker learning program for your school.