Consider flipped learning approach. Students are expected to read up and learn about the topic - particularly the purely factual elements - before the lesson. Use the lesson time to engage the students in applying their knowledge in relevant ways ie through simulations/ role plays / discussions etc. This is particularly important for vocational courses and for encouraging relevant attitudes.

Architecture students need to learn how to learn independently.

The best thing you can do in limited time is to encourage them, improve their motivation, and teach them essentials of problem-solving and research methods.

Teach them how to analyze a problem, break it down to smaller problems, search for already-existing solutions, fill the gaps and interconnect solutions to solve the main issues in theory and design.

Here is one way to approach this issue: present the skills and then role play over and over until the time is up. Q & A are ongoing through the process but ask them to be limited to relevant questions having to do with specifics of the learned skill not an individual hypothetical.

Ask as you present. I am happy to reflect with you.

Warmly,

Jean

Dear Ahmed Farouk and Cecilia McKelvey

Thank you

I agree that flipped learning could be effective when the class time is limited. But what if the program duration is not enough to host all the required courses within the available credits?

Best regards,

Dear Aryan Shahabian

Thank you

I do believe that architectural programs should consider and develop the skills of self-directed learning to help their students learn effectively during their undergraduate education and after graduation. But how could this approach affect the configuration of an architectural program? What should programs teach? and what should they encourage the students to learn by themselves?

Best regards,

Dear Jean Metzker

Thank you

Actually, role playing is effective and commonly applied in teaching architectural design courses, and your recommendation for how to control it to get more benefits is clear. I still think how to reflect the concepts of this teaching approach within a plan of an educational program, should we free some of the spaces taken by theoretical/knowledge courses to leave more spaces for skills courses?

Best regards,

I would like to focus on the design of the undergraduate architectural programs, and specifically when the duration of these programs is considered limited (3-5 years). Actually, the education of architects consumes a lot of time and requires life-long learning, and consequently, undergraduate architectural programs are usually considered a beginning, and some graduates reach the competency level after years from graduation or after postgraduate studies. Some undergraduate programs try to offer additional courses and/or expand their duration, but they may look overloaded and less calibrated.

In other words, how could we effectively develop shorter architectural programs capable for developing broader knowledge and skills? If possible!

That is hard to answer, but there are many possibilities:

- Longer time of mandatory internship

- Additional online support (that requires additional work, a lot, to getter material and edit it - if you are well paid... try it)

- Skills sharing (The firt day of my classes I always ask my students what are their abilities and strengths and try to create opportunities for them to share it with each other). When I am exploring a new thecnique, for instance, I ask them to pair and then each one should choose something different to learn, then I tell them to teach each other what they learned.

Unfortunately in my experience, they almost never use the additional online material, unless when I share something through social media (like famous architects instagram profiles etc.).

I feel that the more I detail information to make it easier, the less they learn, maybe it's because they never had to look for the information, so they think it's granted. I don't know. Education is hard, and I am just starting at it.

My professors didn't use to explain alot, and I feel, now, it gave me the opportunity to become more independent and proactive. I can't describe my students as independent.

But, maybe, the internship is the way because it's the closest they can get to a real work environment\experience, and everyone I know really learned from their work experiences or from fellow architects. So, maybe a mentorship?!?

If you find the answer, please, tell me.

I would recommend you re-visit the "required" knowledge and skills and work your program design backwards. Let your program design be led by its most significant outcomes and not time. Arguably, why should time matter, if it is absolutely and definitively essential to have students acquire the "required". re-visit the "required. More to come if you do this step! Take care for now