Section 2: Evidence Collection

Now that you have spent time exploring what it is you really hope to support in your learning community, through the Maker Elements or constructs you have defined on your own, it is time to think about how you might capture evidence of your constructs.

Creating opportunities for students to demonstrate the constructs and designing mechanisms to capture this evidence are two separate design processes that are very interconnected. The activities in this guide, and in the Beyond Rubrics Toolkit, will focus primarily on adapting and remixing tools to document and capture evidence of the making process. For inspiration on maker activities you may incorporate into your maker-centered classroom or makerspace, check out these resources:

  • MIT Full STEAM Ahead: This website was put together in response to the increased virtual and online teaching happening during the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) activity guides, videos from MIT scientists and researchers, and strategies for educators.
  • The Tinkering Studio Projects: The Tinkering Studio is a workshop within the Exploratorium museum focused on playful invention, investigation, and collaboration. This site includes several making and tinkering activity guides you can implement.
  • MIT Edgerton Center STEM Projects: The MIT Edgerton Center offers year-round K-12 STEM outreach programs at MIT. This page contains several DIY guides to implement projects in your classroom.

You may also choose to adapt or redesign the curriculum you are already using in your classroom. As you make your way through the activities in this guide, be sure to ask yourself if the activities and curriculum you are planning will provide opportunities for learners to engage in the constructs you have identified. For instance, if you have selected troubleshooting as a skill you hope to support, are there opportunities for students to engage in productive struggle in the process of making?

  • In Try the Toolkit: Design a Monument you will engage in a making activity with colleagues while trying a few of the evidence collection tools from the Beyond Rubrics Toolkit. You will have the opportunity to engage with the tools as a learner and then take a step back and reflect on what you see in the evidence.

  • In Design Your Own: Activity & Data Collection Tool Rapid Design you will have the opportunity to design an activity and data collection method based on prompts. Through this process, you’ll have the opportunity to think through how the activity design and assessment design processes fit together. Through discussion of the process with colleagues, you’ll identify some design principles to take forward into your own curriculum and assessment design practice.