Principles of assessment in school-based making

ABSTRACT

While school educators are increasingly interested in adopting maker pedagogy, many schools struggle to integrate making with their existing core curriculum because of the difficulty in assessing the learning that occurs in maker classrooms. To address this issue, we collaborated with educators on design-based research focused on assessment in maker classrooms. We investigated assessment approaches that support the process of making. This paper reports on four design principles of assessment in school-based making that emerged from a literature review and the collaborative development process with educators. We discuss the challenges and opportunities for assessment in maker classrooms, as well as strategies to seamlessly embed assessment within a classroom’s culture, norms, and activities.

KEYWORDS:

• Maker education
• maker pedagogy
• classroom assessment
• design-based research

Acknowledgments

This paper is based upon the ongoing collaboration with the Maker Ed. This work is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1723450. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the NSF (National Science Foundation) [1723459].