Visualizing the Unseen Design Work of Educators

Educators are often described as practitioners and can be subject to deficit-oriented characterizations that position their work as focused on the passive dissemination of knowledge. This pictorial argues that educators are designers, and their curation of learning environments and experiences constitutes an underappreciated and complex design practice. Further, the design work that educators engage in is significant and consequential as it can define or reimagine who participates and what is valued in educational spaces – playing an important role in creating more equitable educational outcomes. In this pictorial, we leverage photos captured and curated by educators of their learning environments in library makerspaces and youth-serving technology centers to make their unseen design work and impact visible. Beyond making educators’ expertise more visible, this pictorial also offers design considerations for designers of technologies, materials, and experiences that may be situated in educational environments.