A Home for Design-Based Learning at UCLA
Frank O. Gehry Foundation Gift has endowed the Doreen Gehry Nelson Director of Design-Based Learning position at UCLA Center X
“The impact of the Doreen Nelson Method of Design-Based Learning profoundly matters.” — Frank Gehry
A gift of $2 million from the Frank O. Gehry Foundation to the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies has endowed the Doreen Gehry Nelson Director of Design-Based Learning position for UCLA Center X, now the permanent home of the Design-Based Learning Project. This unexpected gift was made by Frank to honor his sister, who has devoted her professional life to improving K-12 education outcomes. In July of 2020, a full-time Design-Based Learning Project Director with expertise in Nelson’s methodology will be hired for that position at Center X.
As UCLA Wasserman Dean Marcelo Suárez-Orozco put it, “This gift honors the legacy of Frank’s sister, Doreen Gehry Nelson, and her remarkable vision for and persistent pursuit of the use of design and creativity as a way to engage young people as active and invested learners.”
“I am grateful that my brother made this gift to UCLA in my honor,” said Doreen, “and I am deeply touched that he is ensuring that my method of Design-Based Learning continues to be an enduring part of UCLA’s K-12 education programs. As an artist, Frank recognizes that my methodology promotes creative and high level thinking, and fosters civic literacy, global awareness, and active citizenship. He knows that students truly learn what it means to think about their future and become active members of their communities. Design-Based Learning stimulates students to explore powerful topics including universal concepts, principles, values and morals.”
Four decades of evaluative data from K-12 classroom teachers utilizing Nelson’s Methodology confirm that students in Design-Based Learning classrooms develop creative and critical thinking skills and score higher than average on standardized tests in Language, Reading, Math, and other subjects. English Language Learners and students with learning disabilities, too, show measurable improvement. Students in the program graduate and enter college in significant numbers.
Last April, the Center for City Building Education jump-started a relationship with UCLA at Center X. Aided by UCLA’s robust infrastructure and expertise, we are growing our activities to offer all of our educational services and professional development courses to a wider audience. The success of the initial Design-Based Learning Project at Center X, and the renewed energy of the Center for City Building Education, resulted in something we never could have imagined.
The Design-Based Learning Project at UCLA applies and builds upon the Doreen Nelson Method of Design-Based Learning™, practiced for more than 40 years by K-12 classroom teachers around the world to teach students to think creatively. To find out more about Design-Based Learning Click Here.
A Message from Doreen Gehry Nelson
This is an historic moment for the Center for City Building Education and for me personally. After almost 50 years of swimming against the current, the tide is finally in our favor. Everyone receiving this Newsletter knows what this endowment. The members of the Board of Directors of the Center for City Building Education, too share my gratitude for the trust and generosity of my family, who have made this significant investment in the future of American Education.
Frank, my only sibling, and I grew up in a family of little means, but high expectations. Today, in different ways, we have achieved success and recognition in our fields, but what drives us is the same: we simply love what we do.
Frank has been my big brother for 82 years. Being 8 ½ years his junior, I have been the recipient of, and always valued, his wisdom, love and opinions. Luckily, he gives these freely, like the gifted teacher he is. He taught me to notice the physical world. Walking down a street with him when I was a child became a treasure hunt to find shapes, textures and colors—in buildings, trees, clouds, or anything—and to wonder what might happen if one thing became another.
In 1971, The National Endowment for the Arts awarded me the first Architect-in- Schools Program, Grant to spread the methodology I had started as a classroom teacher in 1969. Frank and two architecture grad students joined me as I worked in three classrooms to train the first teachers who signed up to learn my methodology. I loved working with Frank and so did our group of 5th graders. (A film called Kid City was made to document our work together.)
With the endowed Design-Based Learning Directorship at UCLA’s Center X in place, I will now focus my efforts through the Center for City Building Education on developing other Design-Based Learning projects and initiatives. These include: promotional strategies to continue to establish and support new avenues that deepen Design-Based Learning, field testing a training program in Creative Thinking for the business world (a potential steady stream of revenue into our Center), raising funds for Design-Based Learning scholarships for teachers in need, and acquiring an agent and publisher for my latest book
On behalf of the Center for City Building Education Board and myself, I want to thank Jessica Heim, the current Director of the Design-Based Learning Project at Center X, for her efforts and devotion in launching the Project at UCLA during our trial year and for her willingness to use me as her sounding board. Jessica’s ability to train others is stellar. In one short year, she went from being a spectacular 3rd grade teacher who loved what she was doing to learning to be an administrator at UCLA and loving that, too.
A seamless transition into UCLA’s Center X is the result of the efforts of our latest group of trainers (Rana Masri, Yvette Villasenor, Dave Cameron and Gabriel Cabrera) who jumped in to do what ever was needed do. Our Design-Based Learning Fellow, Araceli Garcia developed and taught a one day class for K–12 teachers at UCLA showing how Design-Based Learning can be used to prepare students for ELPAC (English Language Proficiency Assessments for California). Fellow Jen Sorbara,who has been working alongside Jessica and me in the current teacher trainings, will be filling in to teach classes during Jessica’s upcoming maternity leave. Fellow Daphne Chase has remained a strong force behind the scenes.
And, finally, I want to thank Nico Bejarano, my assistant, who has been invaluable to me personally and professionally. Nico has become an advocate, offering support and informed critiques as we explored the range of possibilities for growing our work, at UCLA and beyond, and planning and organizing trainings.
Design-Based Learning at UCLA’s Center X Upcoming Events
We are happy to share the following dates for activities of the Design-Based Learning at Center X Project’s events.
July 22–24, 27–28, 2020: Design-Based Learning Summer Immersion Program
Try Design-Based Learning at Home!
The Center for City Building Education has put together a sampling of time-tested activities that showcase the Doreen Nelson Method of Design-Based Learning© for teachers and parents stuck at home to try at home with their kids during the Corona Virus lock-down. These activities can be repeated with a different focus.
We welcome your feedback. Please keep checking our website, where we will be sharing more of these throughout our time in isolation. If you have any questions please contact us and a member of our team will be happy to help.
Coming Soon…
Doreen has completed her latest book, which is the most comprehensive book dealing with the origins and basics of the Design-Based Learning Methodology.
We are currently in the process of finding and hiring an agent and a publisher. If you or someone you know is interested in the job, or would like to help in this process, please contact us.