The Loft supports a project-driven learning cycle

The design canvas helps teams set the goals for their project and choose appropriate milestones.

The process guide teaches complex problem-solving processes such as the human-centered design process used by Design for America students.

Teams use collaborative project management tools to plan their approach.

The Loft helps facilitate team progress by surfacing project struggles and inviting peers and coaches to provide encouragement and help.

The Loft face-to-face, computer-supported group critique tools scaffolds feedback so that a group of novices can provide feedback as good as a single expert. 

The wiki-like collaborative editing system and automatic collection and critiquing of work allows editors to crowdsource content creation and curation.

The Loft networks Design for America studios which are hosted on University campuses and incorporate local clients, coaches and alumni and communicate directly with DFA Headquarters.

Policy world teaches students how to make arguments for policy intervention by constructing and using diagrams that depict causal claims of different sources. 

Political Agenda teaches students how to reason about the ideological values using Moral Foundations Theory to understand the common ground between political groups.

A multiplayer game designed to teach fundamental political concepts such as the State of Nature and Hobbes' Leviathan.

New models for networked, interest-driven learning groups with social missions

The Loft is an online platform for orchestrating project-driven learning in civic innovation networks.

Networked learning platform for crowdsourcing policy agenda

Cognitive games embed intelligent tutors in game-like environments to teach policy argumentation

Design research methods for developing theory that is useful in practice