I feel energized! Today I tested an innovative teaching strategy I learned at Drexel’s Teaching and Learning Center in my Building Envelope Systems class at Drexel University College of Engineering.
Here’s how it works: each team gets a double dice and a dry erase board (to keep score). A double dice has one number inside and one outside (see pics). Throughout the class, we learned about integrated design strategies for high-performance, sustainable building envelopes. The course content was structured around 6 elements, which lended itself nicely to the 6 numbers in the dice:
1. Materials
2. Air
3. Heat
4. Daylighting
5. Water
6. Energy
Each student in a team rolls the dice, and gets two numbers (say, 1 — materials — and 3 — heat). Then the student who rolled the dice have to come up with a TRADEOFF or a SYNERGY between materials and heat for building envelope design! If they can get an answer, they get one point. Each group manages their own points, they don’t need to share their answers with the whole class.
At the end of 10 minutes, the group who has more points wins 🏆! Our winner team got 22 points!
That’s also a great strategy for waking up the brain if you teach early mornings.
Thank you to Drexel’s Teaching and Learning Center for introducing the double dice idea — AND for gifting me with the materials to implement it in the classroom (I won a riffle 😂).