“The best way to predict the future is to create it.” - Abraham Lincoln The world is a malleable place. How will you shape it? - MakerEd and Design Thinking are a potent combination that can catalyze the development of learner agency. At Mount Vernon Presbyterian School and the Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation, we’ve been working for years to set conditions for our learners to be real-world problem solvers. More recently, we’ve layered in more Maker, Design and Engineering (MDE) efforts to increase the sophistication of our prototyping and problem solving. And we’ve introduced “Design Briefs” and “Provocations!” We want to share our methods and stories and learn from yours. For this expedition, we will give participants a chance to witness the impact they can make for members of the Boulder community. We’ll seek out authentic users to have at the center of our design thinking work, and then explore the pedagogy of tinkering through hands-on/minds-on fabrication. We are hoping to engage with a hospital community for our user group, and we plan to co-opt some more advanced Maker equipment, such as a Carvey, to create higher resolution prototypes that address the identified needs of people at the hospital. HMW create playful gear to brighten the days and experiences of those in the Boulder medical community?

1. Image Credit: “Zahnrad. / Gear.” by Stefan W from Flickr CC-BY 2.0
Bo Adams
Jim Tiffin Jr.
Traverse - June 4-6, 2018

2. Who are these guys?

3. Sharing… it’s the new default
Tweet or ‘Gram with:
#tvrse18
#MVIFI

4. 1. Connect with
someone new.
2. Share your
story.
3. Try it before you
understand it.
4. Play.

5. Our guest of honor!
(Even though he’s late…)

6. Our guest of honor!
(Even though he’s late…)

7. Our #bitstoatoms tool

8. Vocabulary:
Tinkering

10. Our #bitstoatoms tool

11. ImageCredit:“WhichWayNorth?”byDMfromFlickrCCBY-ND2.0

12. Build Permit

13. ImageCredit:“luggage”bylarsjuhfromFlickerCC-BY2.0

14. The “BoJimble”

15. ImageCredit:“lesiourtesdekolkok”byXavifromFlickrCCBY-NC-ND2.0

16. Getting further faster

17. Getting further faster

18. ImageCredit:“TaiwanDogFashion”byGrahamRichardson
fromFlickrCC-BY2.0

19. Provocations
A constructionist
methodology for learning
experience design in
maker-centered
classrooms.

21. Provides a large glimpse into the
adjacent possible.

22. Gives students a focused end-product to work
towards, requiring pre-defined skills & competencies.

23. Promotes creative problem solving in a
just-in-time learning context.

24. Promotes problem-identification and self-
recognized agency.

26. debrief
Image Credits: “insight” by Stephanie Schuldes from Flickr – CC-BY-NC-ND 2.0
“puzzle” by Erin Brown-John from Flickr – CC-BY-NC 2.0
“Zodiacal Light intersecting the Milky Way” by Zexsen Xie from Flickr – CC-BY 2.0

27. Thank you everyone!!