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BLADE KOTELLY: So the
class is broken up

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into two sessions, a Monday
and a Wednesday class.

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Each class is two hours long.

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The typical class runs where at
the beginning of the semester,

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there'll be more lecture
than towards the end.

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JOEL SCHINDALL: Blade and
I have developed a style

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for teaching the course
which works very well for us.

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It's a bit like Our
Town where the actors go

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through their paces, and
every once in awhile they stop

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and the stage manager
comes on stage

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and makes an
editorial comment that

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couldn't be conveyed
in a direct fashion.

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We evolved it perhaps
because Blade is charismatic.

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He is very effective at
the teaching of the course.

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He knows the material.

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He lives the material.

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But I've had a lot of the
experiences in industry

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about how this material
actually plays out.

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So typically Blade will do
the bulk of the instructing

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in a very Socratic
manner, which is

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part of what makes
the class effective.

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Blade is very, very good at
evoking from the students

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their ideas about
what is design.

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Meanwhile, I will
listen to the progress.

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And where Blade touches
on a subject which

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can be enhanced or embellished
by talking about real world

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experience relating to
that particular topic,

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I'll chime in.

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Blade is wonderful about
stopping just about

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in mid-sentence and allowing me
to work with the students just

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a little bit to engage
them on this, to share

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with them about it.

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And then I go back and sit
down, and Blade continues right

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where he left off.

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BLADE KOTELLY: The lectures are
interspersed with activities.

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So students will do some
hands-on activities every,

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let's say, half hour.

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Probably at the limit is about
halfway through, about an hour

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through, they'll have to do
something no matter what.

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Because you want to keep
students' attention up.

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There'll be some classes
which are, like I said,

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primarily lecture-based.

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Some classes where it's a lot
of students working in groups,

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and then we're stopping the
work, asking a question,

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sharing ideas,
and evaluating it.

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Some classes run in
a very Socratic way.

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So we're really having
them come to conclusions.

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So a class on
ethics, for example,

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runs better when you
teach it Socratically

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because they need to become
engaged with the material.

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And if you're just
saying, here are

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examples of ethical problems.

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And here are their solutions.

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They can check the box.

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OK, yes I get that.

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That makes sense to me.

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Or maybe there's something
where they don't quite get it,

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and you could bring up some
interesting discussions.

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But I think it's more successful
to have them think about it

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and be able to then
even argue in class.

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And so you find
divergent points,

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and you have different
students hash them out.

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And you'll find that
sometimes other students will

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come in having
turned their brain on

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and being sparked by an
idea and say, wait a second.

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No, no.

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I think they're right.

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And because we use
name cards that

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have the name on the
front and the back,

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the students can see
each other's name

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and can say, you know, what
Joyce said was really good.

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No, I like that.

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That was an important point.

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Basically they can
see each other.

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So it connects a class
to be able to start

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learning together, which makes
the learning process actually

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very important for those kinds
of classes to be in person.

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The class is meant to
have a lot of interaction.

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As much as possible, really.

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At the end of a big school
day, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM,

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they could be tired.

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And they probably stayed
up really late the night

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before so they're
probably definitely tired

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around that time.

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So you want to make sure that
you're keeping them entertained

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and engaged with the material.

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I mean, it's really-- every
class has great material.

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Any class can have
great material,

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but the attitude, I think, is
that if you get your students

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to be engaged intellectually,
they'll learn it faster.

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Then when you're trying
to shift their thinking,

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you're not just simply
explaining a concept,

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but having them
think differently.

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Then you need to
engage them even more,

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because you need to change
the way their brains are

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functioning and get synapses
to fire even differently.

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JOEL SCHINDALL: We bring
in outside speakers

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for some of the talks.

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And the outside speakers
are an eclectic mix.

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In some cases, we'll bring in
someone from the Engineering

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faculty who is particularly
gifted at communicating

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mechanical engineering
design skills

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or electrical or
chemical, because we

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want to give the
students-- there tend

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to be some discipline
unique ways of thinking,

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and we want to give the
students an idea of what

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the broad range is.

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But other times we
bring in someone

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who seems rather off-the-wall.

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We brought in someone
who has started

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two or three restaurants
in the Boston Area.

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And you say, a restaurateur?

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What does that have to
do with engineering?

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And the students
come to the class,

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but don't really expect
to get anything of value

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until they find out that
designing a restaurant

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is a really significant
design process.

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You have to look at
what do the users want?

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How do you greet them
at the restaurant?

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What type of food do you have?

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How do you design the space?

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How do you make the patron in
the restaurant feel welcome?

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How do you make the staff
function effectively?

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There are many, many aspects.

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And to see someone in front
of the room who is not

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an engineer, and
yet who is using

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some of the same
engineer thinking

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that you use to solve a
problem that you never thought

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much about, because when
you go to a restaurant

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you just hope that the food will
come and that it'll taste good

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and that it won't
be too expensive

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and that your favorite
dish will be there.

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But you tend not to
pay any attention

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to how were you
greeted by the hostess?

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How were you seated?

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What are the wait staff doing?

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How is the cook
working in the kitchen?

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And you begin to
realize that there

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are many more
dimensions in the world

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that you're interacting with
than you pay attention to.

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BLADE KOTELLY: If we have a quiz
in class, we administer a quiz,

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we swap all the quizzes,
we review all the answers.

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Quizzes tend to have a lot
of the questions repeated

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on each quiz so if they didn't
know the answer the first time,

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they should know
it the second time.

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And they'll definitely
know it the third time.

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Because we review it in class.

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We'll spend several
minutes reviewing

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that quiz to make sure students
can use it as a learning

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opportunity, because I do
want to do a diagnostic to see

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what are they getting?

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Are they doing the reading?

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I want them to do the reading.

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It's how I test for it.

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But I also want to make
sure that they're learning.

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And if they haven't
done the reading,

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maybe they learn a
little bit from this,

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maybe they'll ask some
different questions.

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So we'll have someone grade
and then give the result

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to see what the contour
of the grades are.

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Even though they've already
swapped papers and done

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their own grading, students go
through and check all of them

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again so they can understand
what the contour is

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so I can understand are students
not reading the book yet?

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Maybe we assigned
the book too soon

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and they weren't able to get
to the bookstore soon enough.

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Or maybe they're in
a real crunch time,

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they weren't able to review
some of the material.

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So we try to do a diagnostic
to see what's happening.

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The teaching assistants
will take notes,

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one teaching assistant
will take notes

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during class of everything
that we discussed

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so we can tune out the
slides and topics later on.

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The may be an example that we
haven't used before that either

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is topical, because now a
company releases a new product

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that we want to be
able to incorporate.

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Or there'll be a new way
to articulate something.

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They'll say, oh, that's
a really good way

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that we were able to
articulate this idea.

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Or a really good moment
that happened here in class.

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Let's think about how to bring
that into the curriculum.

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So we're always taking
notes about each class.