The community as text : using planning as a vehicle for interdisciplinary education
Name
759122675-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
18.56 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
704d7082a4073533dd4b71d4f1170f4b
Author(s)
Ritchie, Frances C. (Frances Cunningham)
Advisor(s)
Anne Whiston Spirn.
Alternative Title
Using planning as a vehicle for interdisciplinary education
Date Issued
2011
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Many American schools fail to teach students about the built environment. However, there is both scholarly and anecdotal evidence that using students' communities as a teaching tool is an effective method for increasing student engagement and increased knowledge retention, as well as improving their knowledge transfer and higher-level thinking skills. In this thesis, I argue that schools are missing an educational opportunity to by failing to incorporate students' neighborhoods into curricula in a sustained and interdisciplinary way. I argue that planning is an ideal vehicle for interdisciplinary education, but is also a worthwhile topic as an end in itself, teaching students about republicanism and civic engagement at a local level. This thesis looks at three programs that teach students about the built environment, and then offer a case study of how a more sustained program could implemented in an eighth-grade classroom in Dorchester, Massachusetts.
Description
Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2011.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 144-146).
Subjects
Urban Studies and Planning.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning
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