Teaching For Tomorrow
Foreward by Frank Kelly
It may seem curious that Ted McCain, having written a fine new book to stretch educators’ notions about instruction, would turn to an architect to draft the foreword. Having worked together on technology related programs for a number of school districts, Ted asked that I review his final draft. While the problem-solving project based instruction he proposes may seem challenging to K-12 educators, I was, as an architect, instantly comfortable with the concepts because that is how architectural education has worked since the 19th century. But Ted has gone far beyond adapting an old idea to a new context and there is much to learn here for any educator.
Early in the book, Ted draws a distinction between ‘school skills’ and ‘real-world skills’, and worries that in the past, his teaching may have been producing “highly educated useless people.” It may be helpful in this regard to reflect on why architectural schools have used project based instruction for so long to bridge this gap. Architecture is less a discipline than an amalgamation of disciplines and its products are ‘projects’. Creating major buildings in urban environments entails creative, artistic skills, but also involves in equal measure, engineering and construction skills, political and social skills, business and legal skills, and communication skills including graphics, writing and speaking. Most of all architecture involves using all these together to address clients’ functional, aesthetic, budgetary and schedule problems which never have simple or singular solutions.
Architecture schools use projects modeled on those from the ‘real-world’ as vehicles for integrating all the skills required. The teacher will often involve ‘clients’ from outside the school to help students understand the requirements of the project. Students, each with their own work station, study in studios with the guidance of professors who define the ‘problem’ to be solved, but who do not themselves know the potential solutions. Students take conventional core subjects and special courses in history, engineering, business and graphics, but all are integrated through the studio work. At the end of each project, students present and defend their solution to a ‘jury’ of teachers, clients and practitioners. As students progress through the years, they maintain portfolios as a record of their work which they carry with them after graduation to demonstrate their capabilities to prospective employers. In theory, they are highly educated and ‘useful’ people with skills applicable in the real world.
As you read though the book, you will understand why as an architect, I was immediately attracted to Ted’s concepts and pleased to find that project based instruction as I had known it as a student and teacher has been enriched and given life in new areas of education. He maps out six changes that teachers must make to use problem solving project based instruction effectively. These will sorely stress those who want to tell students what they should know and do, and then test to see if they ‘got it’. He outlines through the 4 D’s (Define, Design, Do, and Debrief) a methodology for problem solving applicable to virtually any field. In the process, he substantially alters the roles of both teachers and students proposing that teachers focus more on structuring problems that will allow students to create knowledge for themselves.
By the end of the book, I couldn’t decide if I would prefer to be a teacher or a student in Ted’s school---and perhaps that is the point. That both the student and teacher should be engaged in solving the problems, that neither should know what solutions might emerge, and that both should be learning and growing in the process. That sounds like a great school. Ted undoubtedly intended his book for K-12 educators, and I will tout it to our school clients. But I will also share it with colleagues in architectural schools who will find a fresh approach to their old ways of teaching.
Frank S. Kelly, FAIA
