In this world dominated by technology and AI, we tend to forget the power of doing things ourselves. Creating, building, inventing, and even breaking things with your own hands has a different kind of charm to it. Through these processes, we gain a hands-on understanding of what we are doing as well as the results. They help us learn and explore. Such people are what we call ‘makers’.
A Maker is anyone who actively creates, builds, experiments, or invents; thereby, bringing ideas to life. Makers can be artists, hobbyists, engineers, entrepreneurs, content creators, etc. The one thing that they all have in common is their passion for making things happen, making them come to life. They transform ideas into reality. Hence, it is more of a mindset than a characteristic or trait.
What is the Maker’s Mindset?
The Maker’s Mindset is an attitude of actively learning through creating and doing. It is one’s belief that ideas are best explored through experimentation. This mindset is characterised by a mixture of curiosity, resourcefulness, resilience, persistence, playfulness, and a hands-on approach. This is a crucial aspect of problem-solving and innovation. Some researchers also call it the “can-do attitude”, since it literally refers to acting on the knowledge that one has (Aljabaly et al., 2024).
This mindset and the activities one may do as a result of such a mindset are a powerful context in learning for both students and teachers. It involves a foundation of learning by doing, hence offering students many opportunities to come up with new ideas and/or solve issues that may exist (Regalla, 2016). The maker’s mindset is an important aspect in STEM education, design thinking, and other integrative curricula. But it seems to be rooted in the old traditions of craft and DIY culture. The maker’s mindset involves a love for the process as much as that for the result. Therefore, it does not discard failure, rather asserts it as a step in the process of creation. Makers appreciate the journey and are invested in it much more than having a tunnelled focus on the end goals (S, 2024).
Having a maker’s mindset is about being creative, experimenting, and keeping an open mind. They may perceive the world differently from their peers. They enjoy having multiple options to choose from; this requires them to think critically and reason to conclude, rather than being provided with one. Additionally, they are driven by the belief that somehow it will all work out. Even if they face challenges, hardships, or adversities, they do tend to have an understanding that it will all make sense in the end (Glazkov, 2023).
The Maker as a Problem Solver
The Maker’s Mindset is built on the need to solve a complex problem. This can be seen in any craft or DIY project that one may take up. These tend to twist and turn and become more complicated before they untangle or unravel and make sense. This mindset teaches us to adapt, think creatively, reason, criticise, embrace hardships, learn from failures, and find new paths when faced with challenges and things don’t go as planned.
Makers therefore first understand the problem, analyse it, plan accordingly, acquire essential resources, and only then move on to solving problems or finding an alternative solution. This process teaches critical thinking in a practical, realistic environment. It emphasises determination and not giving up. This freedom to fail and try again, therefore, builds resilience and fosters an understanding of failure as a path to success rather than an endpoint in makers. Essentially, building their confidence and self-efficacy (Aljabaly et al., 2024).
Read More: Are we prepared enough to cope with failures?
Fostering Innovation through Creation
Makers are rejecting the passive idea of consuming; rather, they emphasise their sense of knowing what they can do and what they can learn to do. Similar to artists, makers are also motivated more by internal goals and beliefs than external rewards. They believe in acting proactively, i.e., creating something now, or seizing the opportunity in the present rather than waiting until the future to create (Dougherty, 2013).
Innovation isn’t only about finding something new; it is also about improving existing ideas or finding new ways to use the old ones. The maker’s mindset basically promotes that in several ways: hands-on learning, connecting ideas, promoting collaboration, and inculcating a growth mindset. Research further shows that providing these activities with different designs and technologies that challenge a learner fosters the development of an overall maker’s mindset (Kim & Zimmerman, 2017). Moreover, the maker’s mindset has been described as something of a prerequisite or inevitable trait in future innovators.
This mindset would thus promote engagement and innovation in individuals. Hence, many schools around the world have also started to create learning environments that offer a space where students can propose creative solutions, suggest critical analyses, and explore different perspectives – thereby fostering and inculcating innovative skills in children from childhood itself (Aljabaly et al., 2024).
Read More: Strategies for Creating Positive Learning Environments in the Classroom
Conclusion
In an age of instant gratification, the maker’s mindset thus offers a refreshing alternative. It encourages patience, persistence, curiosity, resourcefulness, resilience, and an overall hands-on approach. Thus, shedding light on the fact that by engaging in DIY activities and crafting, we don’t just make objects, but rather build a foundation for our future innovations and inculcate resilience, one project at a time. Thereby adding to our comprehensive growth and success.
Some ways in which the maker’s mindset can be cultivated include: trying small DIY projects like upcycling old clothes, participating in active learning by watching tutorials or joining workshops, collaborating with others, documenting your process through real-time notes or photos, embracing setbacks and failures as a part of the process and still going on, etc. In the future, a maker’s mindset would thus be powerful in promoting creativity, problem-solving, and innovative thinking. It will serve as a reminder that we are not just consumers of the world around us, but rather we are creators – capable of making, building, fixing, and innovating.
Read More: The Role of Neuroplasticity in Personal Growth and Success
FAQs
1. What is a Maker’s Mindset?
The Maker’s Mindset is an attitude of actively learning through creating and doing. It is a “can-do attitude that people may have. This mindset is characterised by a mixture of curiosity, resourcefulness, resilience, persistence, playfulness, and a hands-on approach.
2. How does a maker act as a problem solver?
A maker’s mindset teaches us to adapt, think creatively, reason, criticise, embrace hardships, learn from failures, and find new paths when faced with challenges and things don’t go as planned. This, therefore, leads to makers acting as problem solvers, finding solutions even in the hardest of hardships. Makers understand the problem, analyse it, and then acquire essential resources to overcome it.
3. How does a maker’s mindset foster innovation?
Makers reject the idea of passive consumption and rather focus on the hands-on experience of the world. A maker’s mindset leads people to be motivated more by internal goals than by external rewards. Which in turn leads them to act proactively. Hence, promoting innovation in several ways, such as hands-on learning, connecting ideas, advocating collaboration, and inculcating a growth mindset.
References +
Aljabaly, M., Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P., & Kangas, K. (2024). Teachers’ Perceptions of the Maker Mindset and Its Facilitation. Techne Serien – Forskning I Slöjdpedagogik Och Slöjdvetenskap, 31(1), 46–64. https://doi.org/10.7577/technea.5582
Dougherty, D. (2013). The Maker Mindset. In Design, Make, Play (1st ed.). https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203108352-2/maker-minds et-dale-dougherty?context=ubx
Glazkov, A. D. (2023, September 26). Traits of a maker mindset. Dimitri Glazkov. https://glazkov.com/2023/09/25/traits-of-a-maker-mindset/
Kim, S. H., & Zimmerman, H. T. (2017). Towards a Stronger Conceptualisation of the Maker Mindset: A Case Study of an After-school Program with Squishy Circuits. Association for Computing Machinery, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3141798.3141815
Li, J., Li, Z., Gao, H., & Yun, T. (2024). Transforming maker mindsets: A case study of elementary students in a maker education context during lesson study. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 53, 101590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2024.101590
Martin, L. (2015). The promise of the Maker Movement for education. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 5(1). https://doi.org/10.7771/2157-9288.1099
Regalla, L. (2016). Developing a maker mindset. In Routledge eBooks (pp. 257–272). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315726519-17
S, M. (2024, November 2). Understanding the Maker Mindset – Menaka’s Blog: Words and Worlds. Menaka\’s Blog: Words and Worlds.
