Doreen Nelson: Design-Based Learning

Doreen (Gehry) Nelson is an educator who created Design-Based Learning (DBL) (originally "City Building Education") — a methodology in which students learn any subject by designing and building model cities and worlds, then iterating ("backwards thinking"). She is Professor Emerita at Cal Poly Pomona (where she founded a DBL master's program in 1995) and has taught at the Art Center College of Design; the New York Times named her one of 30 top U.S. education innovators in 1991. She contributed to the original Maxis SimCity and wrote teacher guides for it. She is the younger sister of architect Frank Gehry.

Her city-building pedagogy draws on the broader constructionist lineage of Seymour Papert and Jean Piaget.