Maker education (a term coined by Dale Dougherty in 2013) closely associated with STEM learning, is an approach to problem-based and project-based learning that relies upon hands-on, often collaborative, learning experiences as a method for solving authentic problems. People who participate in making often call themselves "makers" of the maker movement and develop their projects in makerspaces, or development studios which emphasize prototyping and the repurposing of found objects in service of creating new inventions or innovations. Culturally, makerspaces, both inside and outside of schools, are associated with collaboration and the free flow of ideas. In schools, maker education stresses the importance of learner-driven experience, interdisciplinary learning, peer-to-peer teaching, iteration, and the notion of "failing forward", i.e. the idea that mistake-based learning is crucial to the learning process and eventual success of a project.

Maker education is an offshoot of the maker movement, which Time magazine described as "the umbrella term for independent innovators, designers and tinkerers. A convergence of computer hackers and traditional artisans, the niche is established enough to have its own magazine, Make, as well as hands-on Maker Faires that are catnip for DIYers who used to toil in solitude". Dale Dougherty, founder of the Maker Faire and Make magazine, stated in his 2011 TED Talk that "We are all makers. We are born makers. We don't just live, but we make." In the same TED Talk, Dougherty also called for making to be embraced in education, as students are the new generation of makers. Another central contributor to the maker movement, Chris Anderson, who was once the editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and is now the CEO of 3D Robotics, wrote a manifesto of the maker movement in 2012, called "Makers". His third book, Makers: The New Industrial Revolution (2012), emphasizes the role that making has to play in the renaissance of American manufacturing. Mark Hatch, formerly the CEO of TechShop, also published "The Maker Movement Manifesto". In addition to these contributions, seminal texts include, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering, and Engineering in the Classroom by Sylvia Libow Martinez, and The Art of Tinkering, by Karen Wilkinson and Mike Petrich, founders of The Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium.

In the United States, hands-on learning through making has roots in the nineteenth century, as a result of the influence of educators such as Calvin M. Woodward, who established the Manual Training School of Washington University on June 6, 1879. Unlike later vocational education that would take hold in 1917 through the Smith-Hughes Act that had the aim of reducing the United States reliance on foreign trade, the impetus for the Manual Training School was to provide students with training in making and craftsmanship that had "no immediate vocational goal". Today's maker education highlights students' potential to "change the world" and "let their imaginations run wild" while also emphasizing building students' entrepreneurship skills and ability to earn money by selling their inventions.

That Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth century is sometimes also referenced in relationship with the maker movement. The Arts and Crafts movement, which originated in Britain before taking hold in Europe and North America, was anti-industrial, critical of machinery and factory production, advocating instead for a return to traditional craftsmanship.

Since 2005, maker education has gained momentum in schools across the United States and around the world. Proponents of the maker movement cite the potential for making to bring more women to STEM fields and close the gender gap. Other potential benefits and goals for making include creating greater educational equity among students in public schools, and the possibility for making to be a driver in educational and societal change. Other educators and innovators have developed offshoot curriculum and technologies related to the intersection of critical thinking and making, called critical making.

In school models, such as the Lighthouse Community Charter, a charter school in Oakland, California, Aaron Van der Woorf, the robotics teacher leads the students in Maker Ed. At the Park School, in collaboration with Harvard's Project Zero, students hold a mini maker faire in school that also acts as a fundraiser for the school. Some districts have also adopted maker education district-wide, such as the district of Elizabeth Forward, just south of Pittsburgh, which partnered with Carnegie Mellon to provide professional development for teachers through working with students on Maker Ed. Principals in Albemarle County schools cite Superintendent Pam Moran as instrumental in bringing maker education to their school district.

School Maker Faires feature a display of maker education themed projects, and number over 100 per year. The U.S. contains the majority of the annual School Maker Faires, but they also occur across all continents, although they are often organized by U.S. organizations such as the Nanshan School Maker Faire in China organized by SteamHead. School events are sometimes not open to public admission, but the official Maker Faire website lists all past and upcoming shows and oftentimes schools encourage the general public to spectate and interact with student exhibitions.

In addition to bringing maker education to schools, scholars like Paulo Blikstein of Stanford University and Dennis Krannich of the University Bremen, in Germany, state that, "Digital fabrication and 'making,' and the positive social movement around them, could be an unprecedented opportunity for educators to advance a progressive educational agenda in which project-based, interest-driven, student-centered learning are at the center stage of students' educational experiences." Penketh High School Became the first school in the United Kingdom to embedded maker education into the UK education system in 2018.