Make First is the Crafts Council’s craft education pedagogy. As an approach, it empowers learners to make their ideas instead of sketching them, encouraging them to use malleable materials to test and develop their thinking.
This session, in partnership with the Crafts Council, will focus on teaching to create the necessary space for learners to develop their voices as makers.
Join Craft Council Education Manager, Rebecca Goozee, Artist, Liaqat Rasul and Teacher/Make First Advocate Rose Russell for an inspiring session around the importance of haptic learning, child led approaches, developing dexterity and understanding of the material world by exploring ideas through craft processes.
More about Make First:
Make First is the Crafts Council’s craft education pedagogy. As an approach, it empowers learners to make their ideas instead of sketching them, encouraging them to use malleable materials to test and develop their thinking.
Make First allows learners to develop their voices as makers and shape outcomes by exploring ideas through craft materials and processes. Often without explicit instruction or discussion, learners are allowed to experiment and explore the potentials of craft materials, developing dexterity and understanding of the physical world.
Craft thinking, with its iterative and haptic methodologies, is accessible and beneficial to our very young, our learners for whom English is not their native tongue, and those with special educational needs. A Make First approach acknowledges multiple non-verbal modes of demonstrating understanding and knowledge. By embedding hands-on learning into classrooms, we provide a counterbalance to the increased use of screens by children and young people, as well as an opportunity for our younger learners to develop key fine-motor skills that will aid dexterous activity throughout their lives.
We want to encourage a non-linear craft thinking approach that is rooted in play with materials. Craft thinking encourages learners to develop ideas and outcomes that are driven through creativity, experimentation, reflection and connection to craft practice. Learners gain the ability to self-direct the flow of their work, driven by experiences with materials and other external factors, like local and global cultural heritages and histories or inspiration from other makers and designers.
A learner-driven approach means outcomes are a borne of each learner’s unique background and relationship to the world. We can facilitate this through simple approaches like asking learners to select their own materials, or utilising more in-depth project-based learning pedagogies to allow learners to direct their own work.
Date: Thursday 23rd June
Time: 4pm – 5:30pm
This course is part of the NSEAD Annual Conference programme – find out more and register here
Any questions please email the team - [javascript protected email address]