WALTHAM, Mass. – Sept. 20, 2011 – A recently launched blog will provide visitors with updates on the success and failures of teaching structural understanding to a joint class of architecture and structural engineering students.

As part of his lecturer position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for the fall 2011 semester, Paul Kassabian, a structural engineer at national engineering firm Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. (SGH), launched the blog entitled “Understanding Structures.” The blog will be an approach to teaching qualitative understanding of structural behavior for architects and structural engineers (http://understandingstructures.wordpress.com/).

“I always tell my students that doing isn’t enough and you only learn by reflecting on what you’ve done,” Kassabian said. “So, the purpose of this blog is to record my approach, what works (and doesn’t work), as well as to prompt discussion of what constitutes a relevant educational approach for architects and structural engineers when it comes to understanding structures.”