Architecture education may be able teach students more about real-life problem-solving than traditional subjects.

One of the requirements for interior design students by the Council for Interior Design Accreditation is to be "prepared to work in a variety of contexts as well as across geographic, political, social, environmental, cultural, and economic conditions." To help with this preparation, faculty partners from two institutions--the University…

Some years back, the author found the following problem in a spatial puzzle book: how many ways can you put four blocks together, face to face (with no vertical rotation symmetry)? He gave each student just four blocks and they collectively tried combinations to eventually agree on the answer of 15. He used to think it was a halfway decent task,…

How do cross-bracing, geometry, and base isolation help buildings withstand earthquakes? These important structural design features involve fundamental geometry that elementary school students can readily model and understand. The problem activity, Designing an Earthquake-Resistant Building, was undertaken by several classes of sixth- grade…

The inkling was there all along. Back in 2005, in "A Whole New Mind," author Daniel Pink included design--"utility enhanced by significance"--as an essential aptitude for the 21st-century learner. Some attentive independent school educators began looking around. If forward-thinking independent schools are to produce new minds, they maintained,…

Problem solving is essential to everyone's life. People survive if they are nourished, sheltered, and protected--and they construct ways to obtain nourishment, shelter, and protection through problem solving. Though problems vary in complexity--survival at the one end and the pursuit of comfort at the other--we are reliant on our ability to…

In the last two decades, playgrounds have gotten safer, more streamlined--and progressively worse. Today's playgrounds are distinctly less fun, and distinctly worse for kids. But there's a new vision for tomorrow's playgrounds--letting children design their ideal playgrounds, which parents and community leaders look through when selecting the…

While many aspects of school design have changed over the years, unfortunately the process to find the best architect is the same in many ways today as it was 20 years ago. Design teams announce how many schools they have designed, show lots of pretty photographs and list what each team member will do on the project. Education is a business and…

This article presents a novel approach for explaining algorithms that aims to overcome various pedagogical limitations of the current visualization systems. The main idea is that at any given time, a learner is able to focus on a single problem. This problem can be explained, studied, understood, and tested, before the learner moves on to study…

"TK!Solver" was designed as a personal computing tool to solve problems involving mathematical calculations and analysis. An in-depth review of this model building and problem-solving package is provided. System commands, applications (including data lists, plots/graphs, iterative problem-solving, present values), and other areas are…

Project offers grades 3-8 students hands-on design practice creating built environments to solve a society-based architectural problem. Students plan buildings, draw floor plans, and make scale models of the structures that are then used in related interdisciplinary activities. (Author)

This book presents findings of a 1993 study of how design in the curriculum helps students achieve national educational objectives. It also explores opportunities for expanding the role design can play in students' academic lives. Results of the 1993 study reveal how the use of design experiences in classrooms provides teachers and students with a…

This booklet contains six case studies describing creative and successful teachers who have demonstrated that teaching architecture and urban design from many perspectives makes a great deal of educational sense. The teachers represent a variety of disciplines and teach at various levels, but all recognize the positive possibilities inherent in…

Describes a unit of study for gifted fifth graders that connects architecture to the content areas of history, mathematics, and science. Emphasis was on problem solving of real-world problems as recommended in major reports on mathematics instruction. The unit also used technology in innovative ways, including computer-drawn images and digital…

Because of the complexity of large-scale projects, teams of experts have become the new designers of the built environment, with clients, decision makers, and buildings' users demanding inclusion in these teams. The Grand Frame Game is described as a technique for including people in decision making. (MLW)