Traci Rider - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Traci Rider

... urban neighborhoods: relationships between outdoor activities of children and neighborhood ph... more ... urban neighborhoods: relationships between outdoor activities of children and neighborhood physical characteristics in Dhaka, Bangladesh by Mohammed Zakiul Islam. ... Residents&amp;amp;#x27; attachment to new urbanist versus conventional suburban developments by Mine Hatun Hashas. ...

Alzheimer's & Dementia, 2020

Alzheimer’s disease is expected to become a major public health problem in the U.S. for the aging... more Alzheimer’s disease is expected to become a major public health problem in the U.S. for the aging population. It is projected that in 2050, 65% of the aging population will die of Alzheimer’s. This raises the questions of whether and how we are prepared to provide care for this growing population. In this regard, the built environment can have a crucial role in supporting care and cure processes for the disease. Among the environmental variables that impact the provision of care for Alzheimer patients, lighting is especially consequential as it is known as a non‐invasive cure method that can stimulate the circadian rhythm and mitigate the issues of sleeping disturbance and agitation. Nevertheless, previous experimental research on this topic is inconclusive since many studies failed to present important variables and strategies used in their experimental designs (e.g. characteristics of the lighting device, exposing light intensity and spectral quantity, time‐series design and frequ...

Increasing interest is seen at the intersection of architecture and health. The built environment... more Increasing interest is seen at the intersection of architecture and health. The built environment has become associated with a number of negative health outcomes including obesity, cancers, and dia...

Discussions around health are increasingly seen in design. Stakeholders across different built en... more Discussions around health are increasingly seen in design. Stakeholders across different built environments are beginning to break apart the meaning of “health”. Despite multifamily housing being forecasted to add an additional 4.4 million units by 2025 (Freddie Mac 2016), market-rate multifamily developers are largely latecomers to health conversations. This paper outlines the structure, methodology, and findings of a multi-year project supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation addressing how multifamily developers understand, talk about, and execute health strategies. Using an exploratory case study methodology to address how and why (Yin 2017), three multifamily developers situated as early adopters of health strategies were recruited to better understand how they conceptualized, executed, and evaluated health strategies. In-depth interviews were held in the developers’ home offices in the southeast United States, using a semi-structured interview protocol to explore standa...

As the concept of sustainability continues to become more popular within society, a number of dif... more As the concept of sustainability continues to become more popular within society, a number of different professions are called on to help champion the movement. With the resource strain inflicted by the construction industry alone, dedicated architects and interior designers are important players in forward progress. Though many organizations and associations have been created to help the building industry embrace sustainability both practically and theoretically, the actual implementation of green building practices in construction has been minimal. The main focus of this study is to look at the influence of undergraduate education on designers' interest in sustainable design. Additional interest was in environmental attitudes and the impact of interpersonal relations on those attitudes. Self-proclaimed practitioners in the green building industry were surveyed through a specified email list of the United States Green Building Council. The survey was web-based and addressed issues including environmental attitudes, undergraduate education and professional training. Dunlap and Catton's widely-used New Ecological Paradigm scale was included to measure proenvironmental orientation of the professionals. Contrary to the main hypothesis of the study, undergraduate education was not seen by subjects to be a fundamental force in the decision to concentrate on sustainability. A number of educational elements typically seen in environmental education, including interpersonal interactions, were mentioned by subjects as substantially influential and are therefore explored.

With the emphasis on sustainability and green building continuously growing in both practice and ... more With the emphasis on sustainability and green building continuously growing in both practice and academia, it is important to explore complementary fields that could provide insight and guidance on the inclusion of these themes within formal architectural education. In the absence of a multitude of published works focusing on sustainability in design education, it is beneficial to look to other fields for commonalities. The purpose of this article is to explore the fields of Environmental Education (EE) and Curriculum Theory in search of potential influences to help assist in the much needed shift toward environmental integration in formal architectural education. A number of themes exist within EE literature that can be applicable to architectural education such as systems thinking (Kohak); program and course management (Kim; Moody et al.; Yeung); affective components, such as the use of feelings within courses and designs (Moody et al.); and applied knowledge versus foundational k...

As professional practices adapt and specialize to address the thorny complexities of real-world p... more As professional practices adapt and specialize to address the thorny complexities of real-world problems, it becomes increasingly important that practical applications of design research should be more quickly digestible, assimilated, and incorporated. This has motivated some practitioners to direct—or produce—the research studies they need. It is not always clear, however, that practice-based research ‘measures up’ to academic standards. The situation opens up discussions of alternative “practicum” research training—both for advanced (doctoral-level) research studies but also for applied research methods taught in professional design programs (Masters level). In particular, this study presents preliminary findings on a range of programmatic comparisons between Doctor of Design [DDes] and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Design degree programs, exploring both their alignments and autonomy, in order to discuss the goals and methods of teaching practice-based design research. The study u...

The built environment is an important contributor to both climate change and public health. Trans... more The built environment is an important contributor to both climate change and public health. Transportation, land use, and buildings are three factors significantly impacting environmental and human health in urban areas. Health and built environment experts should actively collaborate to both cool cities and increase positive health outcomes.

Stagnancy Issues and Change Initiatives for Global Education in the Digital Age, 2021

In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago... more In this chapter, children from a 4th grade class at a rural primary school in Trinidad and Tobago participated in a three-week vacation camp with a curriculum based on design thinking. Design problems drawn from the lives of the children were used to stimulate deep thinking and engagement. The focus of the design problems allowed students to practice and build a variety of thinking abilities. They practiced both lateral thinking and vertical thinking at different parts of the design challenges. They applied critical thinking abilities of inquiry, analysis, inference, and argument. The students also practiced metacognition as they reflected on their design choices and decisions, and thought of strategies to be successful throughout the three weeks of the study. These results suggest that design-based education can play a role in developing critical thinking skills in an engaging way, even in an under-resourced context at elementary level.

Medical Teacher

Abstract Design thinking is increasingly applied in healthcare and health professions education t... more Abstract Design thinking is increasingly applied in healthcare and health professions education to generate innovative solutions to difficult problems. The design thinking framework helps individuals approach problems with a user-centered focus; the emphasis is on understanding the user experience, their challenges, and possible design solutions that are aligned with their needs. In this twelve tips paper, we describe strategies that health professions educators can use to prepare for, conduct, and support design thinking. These strategies may also be useful to learners, practitioners, and organizations to address complex problems.

Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2019

This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking... more This article highlights a study in which critical pedagogy was introduced through design thinking strategies to primary school students in rural Trinidad and Tobago.By encouraging interactive discussions between students and instructors, the overarching objective was achieved. In order to build students’ critical awareness, agency and empowerment, during three weeks in a summer camp, the students and instructors engaged actively, in repeated dialogues concerning student rights, media bias, change, and utopian ideas for a better future. As the process unfolded, the students took more control of their learning. They identified and suggested solutions for community problems. The case study demonstrated that student-centred strategies which foster critical awareness and development of social consciousness, can be successfully implemented in schools with limited resources.

BMC Medical Education

Background: Design thinking is a problem-solving framework that has been used to enhance patient ... more Background: Design thinking is a problem-solving framework that has been used to enhance patient experiences, improve clinical outcomes, and refine medical curricula. This study reviewed the use of design thinking in health professions education. Methods: A search yielded 169 articles, which were excluded if they were: (1) not related to education; (2) lacking an application of design thinking; or (3) not associated with healthcare. The final review yielded 15 articles, which were analyzed using qualitative methods. Results: All articles were published in 2009 or later and were diverse in their context, participants, and approach. Six studies emphasized the early stages of design thinking, with inspiration and ideation stages fostered through a variety of activities, such as lectures, small group discussions, and workshops. Studies examined a range of outcomes, including self-efficacy, perceptions, and solutions to a specific problem. Conclusions: Our findings raise important considerations for health professions education, including the extent to which we should: 1) teach design thinking to students as a skill-based tool to prepare students for problem solving in complex healthcare environments; and 2) use design thinking to create, implement, and refine health professions curricula and educational programs. Despite the apparent benefits of design thinking, many questions for health professions education remain.

The Design Journal

This research explores the process of building an interdisciplinary design research team at the d... more This research explores the process of building an interdisciplinary design research team at the doctorate student level across institutions and disciplines. This study aims to establish a case addressing how to: 1) define aligned research goals, 2) outline overlapped approaches, such as methodologies, to achieve the research goals, and 3) organize a research team to conduct an interdisciplinary research project addressing overarching characteristics and research interests of members. This study was conducted in four phases: 1) understanding context, 2) framing inputs, 3) discussing processes (repeatable), and 4) analyzing outputs (products). Framed by Action Research, five data collection methods were used within the interdisciplinary team (participants) over two weeks. The interdisciplinary team building process, the benefits and shortcomings of the methods used, and the resulting research study with aligned research goals are presented in this paper.

Arcc Conference Repository, Jul 16, 2014

This paper explores prospective means of incorporating sustainability and green building themes i... more This paper explores prospective means of incorporating sustainability and green building themes into formal architectural education. By unpacking and understanding the most common and perceived successful methods of including these themes in curriculum, suggestions can be made to steer and capitalize on the effective integration of sustainability and green building topics within the framework of architectural education. Grounded theory methodology focuses on the generation or discovery of a theory to develop a framework for further research in a field where no strong, generally accepted theories exist (Strauss and Corbin 1998; Creswell 2007). The topic of integrating sustainability into formal architectural education is a prime candidate for this type of exploration, as it is a field of great interest, but without a substantial theory. Referencing constructivist grounded theory, this study was framed in how individual faculty members and their groups of peers interact to create their perceived social constructs, thereby establishing a reality of their own processes and the familiarity of colleagues' processes. Through purposeful sampling, a list of potential participants included eighteen faculty members from different architecture programs around North America. Twelve were interviewed before theoretical saturation was reached. The data sets were analyzed through an iterative coding process, and resulted in themed categories and clustered data addressing the primary topic of interest and other sub-research questions. Core categories of Student Engagement and Repositioning the Worldview emerge from exploring relationships within the gathered data. It is perceived by study participants that the most promising opportunities for leverage in this arena include establishing frameworks for student reference, defining levels of context for projects, addressing differences in sustainability terms, engaging studio courses, and integrating themes across support courses.

The following proprietary names are used in this book by permission of the owners: LEED®, Green G... more The following proprietary names are used in this book by permission of the owners: LEED®, Green Globes®, and The Natural Step® Austin Energy Green Building; National Green Building Program; NAHBGreen HealthyBuilt Homes© Copyright © 2009 by Traci Rose Rider ...

Enquiry: A Journal for Architectural Research, 2014

This paper aims to investigate the current state and potential opportunity of strategic environme... more This paper aims to investigate the current state and potential opportunity of strategic environmental discourses and rhetoric in architectural education. Because there is limited research completed on this specific focus, a grounded theory approach was used. In-depth interviews were held with twelve purposefully selected participants, each of whom are prevalently perceived as leaders in incorporating sustainability topics into architectural education. Through a cyclical coding process, larger themes about integrating environmental topics in formal architectural education emerged, with the importance of discourse and rhetoric as one of the primary sub-themes. Different discourses, emphasis on specific terminology, and the implications of each in the conceptual space of architectural educational are explored in the context of both program- and university-level structures. Breaking down the current environmental discourses in these specific contexts offers insight into opportunities to...