---
title: "Maker education"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_education"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:20:18.018902+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Maker education (a term coined by Dale Dougherty in 2013) closely associated with STEM learning, is an approach to problem-based and project-based learning that relies upon hands-on, often collaborative, learning experiences as a method for solving authentic problems. People who participate in making often call themselves "makers" of the maker movement and develop their projects in makerspaces, or development studios which emphasize prototyping and the repurposing of found objects in service of creating new inventions or innovations. Culturally, makerspaces, both inside and outside of schools, are associated with collaboration and the free flow of ideas. In schools, maker education stresses the importance of learner-driven experience, interdisciplinary learning, peer-to-peer teaching, iteration, and the notion of "failing forward", i.e. the idea that mistake-based learning is crucial to the learning process and eventual success of a project.

== Influences ==
Maker education is an offshoot of the maker movement, which Time magazine described as "the umbrella term for independent innovators, designers and tinkerers. A convergence of computer hackers and traditional artisans, the niche is established enough to have its own magazine, Make, as well as hands-on Maker Faires that are catnip for DIYers who used to toil in solitude". Dale Dougherty, founder of the Maker Faire and Make magazine, stated in his 2011 TED Talk that "We are all makers. We are born makers. We don't just live, but we make." In the same TED Talk, Dougherty also called for making to be embraced in education, as students are the new generation of makers. Another central contributor to the maker movement, Chris Anderson, who was once the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and is now the CEO of 3D Robotics, wrote a manifesto of the maker movement in 2012, called "Makers". His third book, Makers: The New Industrial Revolution (2012), emphasizes the role that making has to play in the renaissance of American manufacturing. Mark Hatch, formerly the CEO of TechShop, also published "The Maker Movement Manifesto". In addition to these contributions, seminal texts include, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom by Sylvia Libow Martinez, and The Art of Tinkering, by Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich, founders of The Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium.
In the United States, hands-on learning through making has roots in the nineteenth century, as a result of the influence of educators such as Calvin M. Woodward, who established the Manual Training School of Washington University on June 6, 1879. Unlike later vocational education that would take hold in 1917 through the Smith-Hughes Act that had the aim of reducing the United States reliance on foreign trade, the impetus for the Manual Training School was to provide students with training in making and craftsmanship that had "no immediate vocational goal". Today's maker education highlights students' potential to "change the world" and "let their imaginations run wild" while also emphasizing building students' entrepreneurship skills and ability to earn money by selling their inventions.
That Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth century is sometimes also referenced in relationship with the maker movement. The Arts and Crafts movement, which originated in Britain before taking hold in Europe and North America, was anti-industrial, critical of machinery and factory production, advocating instead for a return to traditional craftsmanship.