Design of the Participatory Learning Experience: Teachers’ new roles as designers of engaging design and maker-based learning experiences

Design and maker-based approaches in education provide opportunities for younger generations to learn many future competencies, but how these approaches and practices are introduced to students and scaffolded in classrooms is of increasing interest among researchers. This paper aims to describe key elements that were used as the design principles for the Participatory Design (PD) project designed for and implemented for lower-secondary school level students (13-14 years). The project was designed by the researcher in collaboration with the craft teacher. The overall design of the project, learning goals and pedagogical arrangements based on earlier studies, and the researcher's experiences in craft, design, and maker education in Finland, is presented. Selected key elements are reflected based on the first look of the versatile data from the researcher's and teacher's perspectives. Students’ voices are briefly presented through open-ended questionnaire reflections. In future work, our aim is to evaluate in more detail which elements of the learning design supported and enabled the participation of students. These insights might be valuable for others designing PD projects for formal education.