When we ask kids to; ideate, design, prototype, make, or create we need to know what exactly we are asking of them.
Making at NISTMaking is the process of free exploration or guided inquiry, often using low cost easily available materials, (e.g, crowd sourced materials such as cardboard, recyclables, tape etc.) or materials already available in the classroom (e.g. Lego, Kennex, Marbles). Making begins at the point of student's current skill level around an area of interest to them, or within the context of a teacher guided inquiry. It can use less structures models of inquiry (i.e. Imagination Foundations Model below) and take place anywhere.
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What does the making mindset look like in action? When children are engaged in a conversation about their learning with others but also with the artifacts that they have created, when they are inspired, problem solving, vacillating between guided inquiry and independent discovery, when they imagine, build and play, when they fail and experiment and test this is when they have switched on to a maker mindset.
Watch this child explain his design and his thinking linked to the unit of inquiry he is exploring in Year 4. |
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