Design Playshop

Design Playshop is a curricular model for teaching and learning inspired by the exploratory tinkering and playful craft production in maker movement workshops, a global trend that merges innovative electronic technologies with craft activities such as e-textiles, play dough circuitry, digital animation, filmmaking, and toy hacking. Design Playshops integrate playful processes and child-friendly art activities with K–12 science, technology, art, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines through four quadrants, (1) play, (2) design within a content area in arts or literature, (3) collaboration, and (4) electronic technology, as shown in Figure 1. For example, a Design Playshop that focuses on e-textile puppetry can provide opportunities to (a) play by inventing and animating characters for a puppet show, (b) design by crafting and decorating a puppet, (c) collaborate ...