The Maker Movement has taken the educational field by storm due to its perceived potential as a driver of creativity, excitement, and innovation (Honey & Kanter, ; Martinez & Stager, ). Making is promoted as advancing entrepreneurship, developing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce, and supporting compelling inquiry‐based learning experiences for young people. In this paper, we focus on making as an educative inquiry‐based practice, and specifically tinkering as a branch of making that emphasizes creative, improvisational problem solving. STEM‐rich tinkering activities are designed to support interdisciplinary investigations and creativity using a STEM‐rich palette of tools, concepts, and phenomena. To date, the majority of research on making has focused on analysis of makerspaces, maker communities, and design and implementation of maker activities. In this paper, we describe a study that documented dimensions of learning in tinkering programs designed for museum visitors. The study, which was jointly negotiated among a team of researchers and practitioners, led to the development of a Tinkering Learning Dimensions Framework and a publicly available video library of tinkering exemplars, both of which are being actively used by tinkering practitioners in their direct service to the public and professional development work for the field.

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With the expansion of maker programs in school and out-of-school settings, investigating the connections between making and learning is important for many reasons, not least to build the evidence base needed by educators committed to its practice. In this paper, we argue that, as a relatively new area of inquiry, studies of making can benefit from close dialogue between researchers and the practitioners who have pioneered and continue to develop the practice. We share how a research-practice partnership sought to amplify the voices of informal educators leading afterschool maker programs to address the research question: How can afterschool maker programs support student learning that is valued and relevant to the school day? We show how the research-practice partnership helped to refine a pedagogical framework describing learning dimensions of making and tinkering in ways that reflect the values and expert knowledge of informal educators committed to liberatory forms of education for young people, particularly those from socioeconomically and racially marginalized communities.

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