The Maker Movement has inspired progressive educators to bring more hands-on learning and tinkering into classrooms, and educator Gary Stager would like to see formal schooling be influenced by the Maker Movement, which has inspired young learners to tinker, to learn by doing, and take agency for their learning.

One way teachers can incorporate the Maker Movement into the classroom is through project-based learning (PBL), and learning prompts should be “brief, ambiguous and immune to assessment,” Sager said at ISTE. “The best projects push up against the resistance of reality. They work or they don’t work.”

Kids simply need a supportive environment to tinker with an idea long enough to make it work, Stager said. They don’t need to be burdened by explaining which stage of the inquiry process they’re demonstrating. “We need to ask ourselves is there less we can do and more the kids can do?” Sager said.

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Allowing kids to deeply engage with a project they are passionate about also helps produce more positive memories of school, Stager said. “The reason the Maker Movement is so exciting is it can re-energize the classroom and it can make high quality memories of education,” he said.