Making It: Studio teaching and its impact on teachers and learners.

Making It grew out of our concern that lessons could beneficially be organized in ways that are closer to the craft workshop or studio than to conventional classrooms, what we have called ‘studio teaching’. Specifically we wondered whether, over a period of less than a term, teachers could create studio-style lessons which would enhance students' engagement, improve attainment and develop the kind of learning habits of mind, or wider skills, which characterise successful 21st century learners. An extensive review of research and practice enabled us to develop a seven-dimensional model of studio teaching. Having successfully trialled this model with a group of secondary school teachers, we believe that our conceptualisation of studio teaching and, by implication, of ‘studio learning’, is itself a real achievement. We have specifically designed a template for instructional design which can be applied in most ‘academic’ as well as in more practical subjects.