Developing Student Agency Through Design

Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland, CA uses maker-centered learning—with direction from Project Zero’s “Agency by Design” research initiative—to engage students in “looking closely, exploring complexity, and finding opportunity.” This post from Teaching Channel introduces us to “Agency by Design” and provides examples from the classroom. Both Teaching Channel and Project Zero are Educator Innovator partners.

“As students become more aware of the design of the world around them, they begin to see themselves as people who can affect that design and are also empowered to actually do the work — to tinker, hack, and improve design. This newfound awareness isn’t limited to objects, but can move into the core curriculum as well, through discussion of the design of governmental systems, cell structure, or a poem.

Developing students’ sensitivity to design and agency are lofty goals. How do we do that? The Agency by Design team has boiled it down to three capacities that empower students as makers that are easy to integrate into any learning context.”

By Aaron Vanderwerff
Image/ Teaching Channel

Interested in finding out more? Read the full article at Tcher’s Voice, the Teaching Channel blog.