mimar.ist, vol.21, no.70, pp.75-80, 2021 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
Remote Teaching in Architecture: On the Experience of METU Architecture Department during the Pandemics and its Aftermath Following the decision to continue teaching remotely at METU due to the COVID-19 pandemics, a series of meetings were held to reflect upon the means of online teaching in architecture, with a particular focus on design studios. Reinforcing the ‘sense of being together’ as members of a school of architecture and ‘bringing the studio to the virtual environment as a social milieu of communication and debate’ were ideas adopted as a common thread. A series of online seminars on remote teaching methods and online programs for psychological assistance offered by the university helped both the students and instructors in keeping up the pace against the hardships of the pandemics. At the end of two semesters of ‘emergency remote teaching’, it is possible to observe that the majority of the students have been successful in pursuing their education; their performance in both theoretical courses and design studios did not change, but even increased. The capacity of the students to use the digital programs was effective in this result. The transition to remote teaching as an obligation constituted an impetus for integrating the computational tools in education starting from the basic design studio in the first year. In spite of the relative success obtained in the emergency remote teaching, however, it is emphasized that ‘face to face communication’, ‘learning by making’ and the significance of ‘the context’ are still vital assets in architectural education. Although the experience of the emergency remote education opened up new perspectives, the school of architecture cannot certainly be fully transposed to the virtual environment.Remote Teaching in Architecture: On the Experience of METU Architecture Department during the Pandemics and its Aftermath Following the decision to continue teaching remotely at METU due to the COVID-19 pandemics, a series of meetings were held to reflect upon the means of online teaching in architecture, with a particular focus on design studios. Reinforcing the ‘sense of being together’ as members of a school of architecture and ‘bringing the studio to the virtual environment as a social milieu of communication and debate’ were ideas adopted as a common thread. A series of online seminars on remote teaching methods and online programs for psychological assistance offered by the university helped both the students and instructors in keeping up the pace against the hardships of the pandemics. At the end of two semesters of ‘emergency remote teaching’, it is possible to observe that the majority of the students have been successful in pursuing their education; their performance in both theoretical courses and design studios did not change, but even increased. The capacity of the students to use the digital programs was effective in this result. The transition to remote teaching as an obligation constituted an impetus for integrating the computational tools in education starting from the basic design studio in the first year. In spite of the relative success obtained in the emergency remote teaching, however, it is emphasized that ‘face to face communication’, ‘learning by making’ and the significance of ‘the context’ are still vital assets in architectural education. Although the experience of the emergency remote education opened up new perspectives, the school of architecture cannot certainly be fully transposed to the virtual environment.t