Future Teach

In today's online, real-time, high-speed economy, there is an unprecedented demand for students with the right technological skills...

...able to collaborate, communicate, and work effectively in teams — capable of applying knowledge and thinking independently. At Rensselaer, we are pioneering the education of the future.

Welcome to Interactive Learning
Roll up your sleeves and take a seat in the Rensselaer studio classroom. Classes of about 60 students are engaged at wired workstations — utilizing cutting-edge tools like Web-based technologies, full-motion video, computer simulation, and other laboratory resources. An instructor and teaching assistant move from workstation to workstation observing and coaching. Notes are taken with a simple mouse click, as students download files and class materials onto their required laptops. It’s an innovative blend of discussion and skill-building, high-tech inquiry and problem-solving — preparing scholars to succeed in the new business world. It’s all part of interactive learning at Rensselaer.

More Studios Than Hollywood
Interactive learning is more than just a concept at Rensselaer; it’s a working reality. The approach has been infused throughout all of our undergraduate disciplines in more than 35 studio classrooms with more being built all the time. In the LITEC studio classroom, students build remote-controlled cars in a project-based, team environment. In the Circuits Studio, students develop and test their own circuits. The Collaborative Classroom, funded by the National Science Foundation, serves as a testbed for using computer technology to collaborate on design projects. At Rensselaer, knowledge and application are seamlessly intertwined.

Teaching How We Teach
Rensselaer’s revolutionary model for education has been talked about, honored, and emulated. We earned the first Pew Charitable Trust Award for the Renewal of Undergraduate Education and the first Boeing Outstanding Educator Award, among others. In 1999, we were named to administer an $8.8 million Pew-funded program to bring educational innovation to other universities in this country: the Center for Academic Transformation. Literally hundreds of institutions have visited Rensselaer to learn how we teach.

No Stopping Now
Of course, the very thinking that enabled Rensselaer to initiate interactive learning is the same mindset that keeps us pressing forward. Rensselaer’s Anderson Center for Innovation in Undergraduate Education was founded in 1989 with the continuing mission of making Rensselaer a leader in innovative pedagogy. More recently, the Rensselaer Academy of Electronic Media has become the spawning ground for highly creative visualization software that enables students to learn scientific and engineering principles in ways never before possible. We continue to look for new and better methods to evolve education — meeting the present and future needs of our students, professors, and global businesses. Because solving real-world challenges is our mission and our passion.

Why not change the world?