Teaching Methodologies

“Education is not an affair of 'telling' and being told, but an active and constructive process.”

John Dewey 

In my experience peer learning is the most effective teaching method. Particularly in an international study environment.  International students tend to be more reliant on their teachers, which can make the transition to graduate degrees a challenge.

"The peer learning method is a continuous part of human learning and a teaching strategy in which lay teachers of different ages and at the same level of learning help each other to learn from each other (1)."

For effective application in architecture education,  the teacher must become a learner too. This entails reexperiencing, relearning and reflecting on what one has learned.  This opens up new perspectives for students and teachers. This encourages engagement and interaction. It enables students' needs to be assessed and the teacher's pressure for preparation to be reduced.

Instead of conventional lectures and seminars, I bundled this under the premise of increased peer learning, in which the students take the most active part.  There is no plausible argument  why the conventional two lectures should be maintained.  

1) .Topping KJ. The effectiveness of peer tutoring in further and higher education: A typology and review of the literature. Higher education. 1996;32(3):321–45.

On the whiteboard: a quick sketch design demonstration 5 minutes.

Working in section, plan and isometry. 

Mind The Gap: Spontaneous sketch proposal to fill a gap on Percy Street in Newcastle. Demonstration, sketching, explaining and reflecting.

Peer-learning experience:  IClass summer school in St. Petersburg

Demonstrating

“The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.”

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Demonstration is a natural way of educating, active and and engaging, as the learner critically observes the process of the demonstration. The demonstrator actively shows the process regardless of possibly obstacles or difficulties. 

When developing a task description, it is important that teachers test the task themselves. I encouraged my team to practically demonstrate how they would approach a task.  Personally I never proposed an assignment I haven't tested myself, even though I may have reached my own limitations. 

In doing so, it is necessary to concentrate on the essentials and allow experiments without striving for perfection.

It may sound challenging, but teachers’ perfection is not required. Students can learn far more from the teachers’ own difficulties with a task rather perfect mastery.  Perfection is indeed a hindrance to all development because it presupposes the idea of ​​a finite outcome, but learning is an inherent change.

Students embrace this method and want to see more of it.

It also supports student productivity and time management.

What is clear is that the traditional master-apprentice relationship still has its merits. It also keeps teachers' skills updated and fresh. Personally, I have learned a lot from practicing this method and continue to learn through demonstration.

Total Recall: The task is to draw a floor plan from memory of a place of belonging. My own contribution, of our flat where my family lived from 1964 - 1973.