Design Principles: Case Study

Phillip D. Long, MIT

Copyright Phillip D. Long, 2004. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

A Schematic of LSD Process - Learning

• Identify learning principles • How is the space used now?

– What types of learning activities are important in that space?• As it is currently used• As desired in the end steady state

system?

Understand the institutional values/culture

Localize learning principles

MIT’s vision clusters around two themes

• Expand MIT’s reach and influence

– Expand MIT education globally to top-tier students

– Offer MIT education and training to corporate partners

– Share educational content via the Internet with the world

• Improve the experience “at home”

– Enhance the core residential educational experience

– Meet the lifelong learning needs of MIT students

– Create flexible ways to pursue educational and research excellence

– Engage and strengthen the MIT community

Strategic thrusts of MIT

• Transform the learning experience to promote active inquiry

• Bolster the commons of the mind• Experiment with new modes of

inter-institutional collaboration• Facilitate an extended university

community

“Drinking from the Fire Hose”

Student patterns of room use by time

Aero-Astro

LSD Process - Design

• Determine the design principles that support the pedagogy – For example, through a design

charrette MIT identified the following design principles

Design Principles

• Design for people not ephemeral technologies– Transparency, natural light, operable

windows• Enable technologies brought to

spaces rather than provide technologies for spaces

Design Principles

• Space cycles prevail over machine cycles • Spaces vary from hard to soft - emphasize

soft spaces• Spaces should be “zoned”for sound/activity

- – quiet/noisy;– High/low turnover;

• Flexibility over fixed• Design for a 24 hour day• Identify learning modes enabled

Learning Mode Analysis

• Learning modes are the practical clustering of learning activities and their physical/spatial dependencies

• An example:– Mode: Project Design – Attributes:

• Size - is it a big or small project?• Length - does it take a term or a class session?• Space - does it require dedicated space?• Interaction requirements - do students need to work in

groups and report back as a class?

Learning modes and related characteristics

21 learning modes for Aero-Astro

• Large systems• Design project• UROP• Large student project• Class/lab experiment• Operate• Linked project• Grad thesis• Teachin in Labs• Research Design Support• Income generating external

• Outreach• Tinkering• Self-directed• Lecture/presentation• Interactive e-classroom• Paper/conference

(&design competition)• Collaborative project• Site visit• Distance learning

Guggenheim Lab

1918

The starting point.

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Transparency - connecting people

Flexibility

Conceive

Design

Implement

CDIO in pictures

Operate

Learning PrinciplesL

Design PrinciplesD

Learning ModesM

Localize to Institutional Culture

Localized to Curriculum& neighborhood

Final Schematic

Credits and References

• Slide 7, New Yorker Magazine, http://cartoonbank.com• Slide 15 - 1918 photo of Bldg. 4 lecture hall, courtesy of the MIT Museum• Slides 14, 16-19: data drawn from the following resources:

– Kuttner, Peter, FAIA, Cambridge Seven Associates, presented initially at the Project Kaleidoscope Workshop “Planning Facilities for Science”, April 10-12, 2003, http://www.pkal.org/open.cfm?d_id=183, Drury University.

• Picture credits, slides 28-34, courtesy of Nick Wheeler  Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc.• Edward F. Crawley, Cory R. A., Steve Imrich Hallam, “Engineering the engineering learning

environment”,written for presentation to the SEFI Annual Conference, Firenze, Italy, 08-11 September 2002 http://www.cdio.org/papers/papers_lab.html

• General:– CDIO Papers and presentations, workshops-laboratories, http://www.cdio.org/papers/papers_lab.html – Learning Design Principles - summary of the Cluster Space Charrette, held at Endicott House, Oct. 1, 2003, under the

sponsorship of the Division of Academic Computing, MIT,led by Phillip D. Long, Sr. Strategist for Academic Computing, and, Wiliam J. Mitchell, Dean, School of Architecture and Planning.

– CDIO web site: http://www.cdio.org/ ,– CDIO Jan. 12-15 Collaborators Meeting, Royal Technical University, Stockholm, Sweden,

http://www.cdio.org/meetings/jan04/index.html

Thank You.

longpd@mit.edu