Thematic Learning

Thematic learning is a pedagogical model based on the selection of a theme or topic of study. I must begin
this description with a confession or declaration. My understanding of thematic learning is based on my own
experiences in the classroom. My ideas are ones that over time have worked for me and for my students. My
teaching model has evolved and changed over time. This model also incorporates several other Pedagogical
Methods such as "Outside of Classroom" learning, "Team Teaching" and "Learning Communities."

In the model, "the theme" becomes the critical thinking binder that helps bring different and seemingly
unrelated information together into a unified whole. In fact I would characterize this as a holistic method. The
model encourages a student to think around a subject. The model is inclusive and encourages the student to
see and seek relationships between information and facts from various sources inside, and outside of, the
classroom. It is also a scalar form of learning as it encourages students to look for thematic relationships
between finite, or specific information, and larger even global thinking.
Basic components of the method:

1. Choose a theme. The theme needs to be one that can be understood through the individual
experience, but, it must also be capable of extending beyond the individual person to have
meaningful connections in the larger framework of human experience – family, school,
community, ecological systems. The choice of theme is central to the ultimate success of the
project. I am always looking and thinking about issues in our community life that can have an
impact on the individual. It is essential that the project seems relevant and real to students.
The importance of this relevancy cannot be stressed enough. You cannot expect a student to
become deeply committed to a process of thought and action if the instructor has not found a
compelling issue that can be read thoroughly and rigorously on multiple levels. The multiple
readings are crucial for the life of the project.
2. Establish a time frame for the project, carefully working out how long to be spent on each
part of the process. There will be two timeframes – one for the instructor’s preparations and
one for student work. For the instructor the time frame starts far in advance of the students.
Choosing a theme and gathering resources is a long and complex process that must be planned
well in advance. For the students the instructor should let the timing of the procedure be a
strict guide for the student to encourage serious attention in order to develop time
management skills.
3. Having established the theme and time frame, now the instructor must do their extensive
research. It is the role of the instructor to identify and assemble a "resource team" to provide
the content for the students. Here again, the resource team must reflect the intention of the
project to move beyond individual experience and examine as broad a range of potential
related issues as possible. The resource team is the content specialists. In my classroom it is not
unusual to find biologists, geologists, poets, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, urban
researchers, politicians and members of the community as part of my content or learning
community team.

4. The field trip is the grand finale to the instructor-driven part of this process. The instructor
has set the stage for the student’s action. Now the instructor’s role in the process moves into
the background. The field trip is when the student’s intense period of discovery and analysis
begins. The field trip is the event from which the student’s ideas are generated. It is also vital
to the life of the classroom because it is often through this shared experience that a real sense
of community spirit and collaboration amongst the students develops.

5. Now the students begin to take over center stage. Up until now it has been a process driven
primarily by the instructor's skill at organization and guidance. The instructor must step back,
constantly act as guide and facilitator, but let the students drive the process forward. At this
stage the students will begin to process the information. One good way to digest a huge
amount of information is to divide the students into groups to focus on a particular aspect of
the materials and then to be ready to share through presentations in the classroom. This stage
of student learning is focused on research and analysis of the project issues and theme.
 6. In the second of the student-driven steps, after everyone has had a chance to absorb the new
information, the student must break from the group and begin to function independently. In
this stage, the students are transforming the research data into their own concept, what we call
a "big idea." Once a "big idea" is formed, the student uses this idea as the basis from which to
reason and structure their decisions as they develop an experiential order for a building that
they design.

Best Practice:  How the method worked for the "Borders" project at Pasadena City College:

Last year I selected "Borders" as a theme for my architectural design classes. I have established a time frame
based on my experience working with this method. I have discovered that a period of ten weeks is required to
complete the student-driven process. This period of time is necessary as the architectural design process has
many specific parts that must be addressed in a systematic way. The first part of the process, the student
research and analysis, takes about two weeks of that time. The remaining eight weeks is the work on concept
development, the "big idea," and designing of the specific solution.

I assembled the necessary resources several weeks in advance of the students introduction to the project. In
the Borders case, the resources were as follows:

​ a field trip to the physical borderland between Mexico and America

​ speakers who opperated as collaborators on the project
​ carefully selected reading materials.

I selected three team members beside myself: Rosa Garza Moreno, an Urban Researcher from Mexico City
currently working in Los Angeles; Brock Klein, an ESL Instructor from Pasadena City College; and Teddy Cruz,
born in Guatemala who practices and teaches architecture in the San Diego/Tijuana area. Teddy specializes in
architectural space along the border and is internationally recognized through his writings on the subject.

The next step was my own research and orientation into the project. This began predictably with the idea of
the border as a linear boundary or line between two countries, states or communities. As I continued my
research, the border concept developed much further from this point and I began to see the idea of borders in
a much broader way, to include issues of individual identity, immigrant identity and, finally, the notion of
space within a border. I discussed these ideas with my content team over breakfast one morning. We decided
to introduce the semester project with a discussion between Rosa, Brock, the Architecture 20A+B students and
myself on the topic of Borders. I began with a simple definition of a border as a boundary between two or
more identities. Also, I introduced the idea of a border as being a space of transition between two identities.
Rosa continued this idea by stating that the first border that we encounter is at birth with we are separated
from our mother's identity and begin living outside of our mother's wombs. The students were very excited
and began speaking from their own experiences as immigrants, travelers and observers of the world around
them. With this first meeting, I established our conceptual grounding for the project.

The next step of the process was the field trip. It was an important component of the
process. The field trip became a very visceral experience, which opened the theme both
to my students and me. For the borders project I selected two sites, one for each of my
second year architectural design studios. The first site, on the border between the United
States and Mexico, was where the Tijuana River crosses the border, a place having all of
the emotion and tension of ‘Check Point Charlie’ along the Berlin Wall. This site was
literally and figuratively the border.

The second site was removed from the actual border and was located in a residential site
in San Diego. The students were given a selection of pedestrian bridges at various sites. The bridges connect
the various local residential communities that are separated by the vast canyons. At this site the theme
borders is seen as two identities being linked by a bridge. The canyon represents the space within a border, a
space composed of two identities simultaneously.

While at the sites, other information was woven into this learning experience. For example, Brock Klein
assigned a project in which the architecture students were to draw pictures using words of what they imagined
was on the other side of the wall at the border or what they thought was on the other side of the bridge.
Students begin thinking of text both in terms of a written, as well as visual language. They were given a total
of four poetry exercises at the site. In addition to the poetry exercises, the students were given very specific
information about the border from Teddy Cruz. He told them facts, including its length, height and origin.
They learned that the wall was composed of steel panels that were designed as airport landing strip for the
desert in the Gulf War. They learned to identify the two sides of the border urbanistically. In other words, they
learned how to identify and distinguish between the urban grid of Tijuana and the open and withdrawn
American side of the border. The students processed this information as they explored the site themselves
through artifacts that they collected on their trip along the wall from the border crossing at San Yisidro to the
Ocean -- where the wall hits the sea. They felt the ironies of the border as they attempted to visit Friendship
Park, closed to visitors by the United States Border Patrol. After a day that began way too early, the students
and staff loaded up the vans and headed back to Pasadena.

Once back at school, the students began to process the

information that they had collected. To begin the creative
process, I asked each student to make a collage using the poetry
exercise documentation from the field trip. The subject for this
collage was an imaginary site at the border. The image to the
left is an imaginary site created by Mariangela Murgula from
Architecture 20B.

Next, I asked them to analyze this research through the

artifacts they selected at the site during our field trip. This
phase is called the object transformation. Students research the
scientific aspects of their subjects as well as their emotional
responses to them. They re-characterize them through the
theme "Borders." For example, a student found a bottle cap. He
analyzed it carefully, and after researching it in the Oxford dictionary, he found several definitions for "cap."
One of them appealed to him and seemed to be suitable for his project. The definition read thus: "A team
captain." The bottle cap now could be understood as identity. The students do this with nine different
subjects. At the conclusion of this stage, the students make a construction to house their subjects. "The
Container Project" is the final conceptual phase. It explores the relationships between its contents or ideas
through the actions of opening and revealing each compartmentalized subject. The project becomes a
metaphor of a building with functions, (i.e. the subjects); a sequence of experience, (i.e. the order and
manner in which the container is opened); and most importantly an idea which is rooted in its site or context.

The students completed their semester work by designing a building for the site. The building function relates
to the theme as well. The students working on the US Mexican Border site designed an educational building
that spanned the border. Their project description was:

Design research station for the study of the critical relationship between the United States and
Mexico focusing on the theme: "The changing relationship between the two countries."

The Colegio De La Frontera Norte is a government supported think tank and graduate school
currently located on the outskirts west of Tijuana. Their US counterpart, San Diego Dialogue, is
a part of the University of California, San Diego. Both entities are involved in studies that deal
with economic development, immigration and urban growth as it occurs along the border. Your
design proposal will house the research, public information and administrative areas of both
COLDEF and SDD, while not replacing the existing teaching and outreach facilities that each
organization currently operates. Both organizations deal with similar issues from different
points of appreciation, one being in The North and one being in The South.

The intent of this project you are undertaking is to offer a common site where a third kind of
geopolitical field emerges; one where the borderless space of interaction, dialogue and
knowledge occupy the usable air-rights over the Tijuana river-border, and where the Berlin Wall
of North America is bridged through an architectural intervention. While symbolic and loaded
with all kinds of metaphorical possibilities, the project should also deal with technology and
program, climate and trans border access as key issues. You’re building concept and
development is to be based upon your transformation of your container of subjects. You’re
building concept and development is to be based upon your transformation of your container
of subjects.

As one can see from the project description, the building function carries the theme. It connects and
continues the design process from the conceptual phase of "the container" to the building phase.

The image below is a collage that I made to illustrate the process followed in the field trip and post field trip
in the classroom. The drawings, imaginary site, and artifacts illustrate the process followed in the Borders
project.

The Diagram of the Method:

1. Establish the scope of project. This depends on the type of work performed in your discipline.
2. Choose a theme, one that bridges the individual to the community.
3. Assemble a resource team to provide the ‘web’ of content for the project.
4. Plan the field trip.
5. The students process the information through group analysis projects and individual analysis
projects. Group work allows the students to form a community that can evaluate the information for
the whole class. The individual analysis results in individual student ‘big ideas’ centered on the
‘theme’ for the project as outlined by the instructor.
6. Individual student designs begin