During my days as a student, I had three courses of history of art, one of history of architecture, one of history of industrial design and two of history of all before mention in México. All of them were imparted by different professors with different methods. Even I know they are pretty obvious and wide-known, I am going to describe them adding what I saw during the courses:

a) Chronology method focusing on a culture: Lets say the first two weeks the culture was greek. We learned everything according to the chronology and then we started over again with another culture. This is traditional method, very effective but not perfect. I believe it might be more useful for people that are really into history, i.e. people taking a master on history of architecture or art. Why? Undergraduate want courses to be more practical and even every architecture, industrial design or art student enjoy learning about what has been done, it is always better to "feel it" rather than "force it". My classmates used to be sleeping during courses, without taking notes about the important details. They only have to knew what was the topic about and then look for it later –obviously is not the same, but it worked, so the course was kind of nonsense for them–

b) Inverse chronology: I have one course with this methodology. It was interesting but I would not recommend it. Most of the student were more worried because of the chronology rather than understanding the topic. The typical questions where: So this was before what we saw last week? (even when it was obvious), It is important to know the exact date? Or, why did they did it this way if they have done it better in the example before? (this was frustrating)

It is confusing, and it is not for everybody.

c) Not caring about chronology: I had a professor that used to ask students to give a presentation about their favourite culture, artistic/design/architectural movement, everyday. The students had at least two weeks to prepare it, and if they made a mistake, or something was confusing, the professor gave the right explanation. At the end, the professor located the topic in the line time and world map, and also gave a "curious fact" like: in that age, Coco Chanel was so popular that you can find buildings, or art inspired in her; or during the world wars the element chrome was limited because they used it to make the colour green of the uniforms and tanks, so there were really few things for the citizens in this metal or green coloured, the cigarretes Lucky Strike is one example of this.  

This kind of facts made student remember easily what they have learned.

The problem about this kind of method, is that no every student is born to teach. Some students are really hard to understand. And also you miss important topics that should be learned.

I believe there is not a perfect method, because every student thinks different, specially in these creative areas. However, there is a common denominator in every student. Try to think as a child does. If you were going to learn about history of the Incas, in which way you would like to learn it? Try to be more practical, spontaneous, surprise your students so they will be always awake. Be formal. Follow the traditional way respecting the chronology, but do not force it. Mix it student presentations. Make connections, organice tours at your local museums, parks, communities and the city. Everything we have nowadays have its own history that we cannot criticize, just learn from it. In this way, students become aware of the importance of it and forget the fact it is just another course. Teaching is about making a difference. It is about awakening ideas in students that they didn't know they had. It is about preparing them for the future, or even better, it is preparing humanity's future. The method is not the most important, all of us have one even without noticing it.

I love history of art, design and architecture. Usually I do not care about the method because I enjoy it, however I think it is more important to find the right questions than the right answers, it is not the same to know where are the biggest rivers in the world than why there are big rivers, or why they are wherever they are. 

I hope it helped. 

Hi Miguel,

Thanks for your thoughtful reply incorporating your experiences.I am inclined to to agree with you.I think the biggest merit of the chronological method (although it does tend to get 'boring' if suffi

Hi  Miguel,

although the chronological method tends to get 'boring' if the teacher is not imaginative enough, or does not make frequent interconnections, its biggest and most obvious  merit is that it teaches history of architecture according to the developments of culture & is therefor simpler for the comprehension to the student who is exposed to a particular aspect of history for the first time.

You are very welcome. I am totally agree with you.

Dear Salil,

I believe that teaching should start with a good book on "History of Cities" that give basis for the concepts of architecture and urbanism.

Also show chronologically the different architectures in the world with a comparison between those countries that were colonized by others and their constructive similarities.

Present the story of the great architects and urban planners in the world and his main theoretical standpoints.

And focus on architecture and urbanism own country.

Best Regards,

Vanessa

Dear Vanessa,

Thanks for your suggestion. Yes, "History of Cities" is a good way to start. Still, would not an introduction to the beginning of architecture or rather shelters before architecture began, prove useful to students in understanding influences that shaped architecture?

Regards,

Salil