The students are analyzing, thinking about what works best, and taking their learning seriously. I have never found anything that works better to engage learning than this methodology.”
The Design-Based Learning Project created a Starter City Guidebook to show teachers how to build a city in their classroom, one of the cornerstones of the Design-Based Learning Project.
This K-12 Guidebook provides:
- A step-by-step plan for getting students ready to build a Starter City of the Future with criteria to set limits for assessment
- A description of how building a Starter City of the Future connects to required lessons organized around Themes/Big Topics and Essential Questions named in the K-12 State Standards (Community, Sustainability, Protection, Energy, and Climate Change, etc.)
- Ways to use a Starter City of the Future to engage students in practicing back-and-forth questioning and higher-level thinking skills
- Examples of practical basic and advanced K-12 Guided Lessons across subject content areas, connecting a student-built City to required curriculum
- A brief history of Doreen Gehry Nelson and a description of her Backwards Thinking Design-Based Learning time tested methodology.