Learning Management System
[Blackboard Vista]

Emerging Technologies

Media & Web Development

Classroom Technology

E-Portfolios

In Fall 2006 forty-five Architecture senior students at the Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston conducted a transect study of Boston. A transect is a research method borrowed from ecology and is a line drawn through an area of study along which the study takes place, and the transects chosen for this semester’s research are the latitude and longitude lines of Boston City Hall. Each Wentworth student is conducting an in-depth, multi-disciplinary study of his or her own “CitySection” of the larger transect. The fieldwork took place collaboratively among the students to coordinate results of adjacent sections. Overall each student conducted six research and analysis assignments. While these assignments primarily served to educate these architecture students on the theories and methods of urban environmental research, these assignments also added-up to a much larger and very exciting research tool— a 350+ website http://www.CitySection.org. This website not only includes research results, but also 45 Podcasts [Sounds of Boston] and 45 short iMovies [Views of Boston] to illustrate research results. The website is made available to everyone, including the public,which was a particular intriguing and motivating aspect for the students.

This CitySection project demonstrates a successful test of the overall pedagogical method, and a broad exploration of a particular set of theories and methods that are a powerful argument of their usefulness in interpreting the city, demonstrating the messy social and cultural specificity that have shaped the city on the local scale.  It also showed to the instructors that the students were not used to engaging in active knowledge acquisition through collaborative and explorative models.  However, as the completed website shows, the students were able to produce high-quality work when given the relevant tools and framework.  Keeping this in mind will ease the transition from traditional to student oriented teaching models, which, without a question, will require different support models.
    
The instructors assert that in their experience the benefits outweigh the starting difficulties in using blended and constructivist learning approaches.  In similar situations students will develop an appreciation for the project and feel as respected and equal participants of the learning community. 

Andrew Johnston – The CitySection Project

Patricia Boge Kendall – Building a Student Project Website

Kate Buckman – Students Create an Online Knowledge Repository