Design as a Catalyst for Learning, by Meredith Davis, Peter Hawley, Bernard McMullan, and Gertrude J. Spilka. © 1997, ASCD. ISBN 0-87120-284-0 (pb)

In Seattle, Washington, 4th grade students explore relationships between culture and habitat as they design and build Native American housing. Social and environmental studies come alive for them through activities that pose real-life problems, similar to those encountered by residents of the earliest North American communities.

A kindergarten student in West Linn, Oregon struggles with making a moveable hinge for a puppet she is designing. She knows the performance she wants and works backward through a myriad of possible mechanical solutions that might achieve the gestures she sees in her mind.

In Lowell, Massachusetts, 7th and 8th grade students apply their knowledge in math, science, and environmental studies to critiques of "environmentally unsound packaging." They work in teams to create more effective solutions. As astute consumers of popular culture, they find writing brochures and designing advertising for these products equally engaging.

A high school physics teacher in Aurora, Colorado reports the success of his "Rube Goldberg project" in motivating students who normally show no interest in physics. In designing, building, and operating their extraordinary machines, students demonstrate their understanding of physics principles with an enthusiasm their teacher rarely finds in traditional exercises.

And in Canyon Country, California, 6th grade students design and construct a city of the future, acting out the roles of the planning and transportation boards and city council. In addition to learning how civic groups reach decisions, students confront the difficulties of planning urban systems while preserving the quality of community life.

These students and their teachers employ an approach to learning in which design is an integral part of curriculum and pedagogy. Increasingly, innovative teachers explore with their students the modes of inquiry used by graphic designers, product designers, interior designers, urban planners, landscape architects, and architects. They also examine content related to the everyday artifacts and environments of various cultures, along with processes for making decisions about visual communication, consumer products, and the built (manmade) environment. Finally, these teachers employ active learning experiences that model the cognitive and social problem-solving demands of adult life. Design-based learning offers genuine promise for preparing students to be thinking, informed citizens who can shape progress in the next century. And, for children, design experiences are intriguing puzzles through which learning comes alive.

The National Endowment for the Arts has long supported the inclusion of design in the K-12 curriculum. In response to growing evidence that design is a powerful tool for transforming curriculum and accommodating the variety of ways in which students learn, the Endowment's Design Program created a special funding category for Design in Education in 1991. Impressed by reports from those who received grants and by anecdotes from classroom teachers and administrators around the country, the Program commissioned a study in 1993 to gain further understanding of how design in the curriculum helps students and teachers achieve national educational objectives and to explore opportunities for expanding the role design can play in students' academic lives. To conduct this research, the Endowment engaged the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, a public policy research and consulting group based in Philadelphia. A national advisory panel of K-12 educators, administrators, and design educators guided OMG in its work during 1993 and 1994.

"This book presents findings of that research and reveals how the use of design experiences in classrooms provides teachers and students with a learning construct for the next century."