Collaborative Leanrning And Architecture Education

Collaborative Leanrning And Architecture Education

Introduction

Two major questions that education faces nowadays are how adequate it is to use group dynamics in class to permit students achieve specific goals and if the efficiency of this technique is acceptable for all the branches of knowledge. Architecture, because of its most important qualities (professional work in teams, practical skills and creativity) appears to be an area in which it is likely that the teamwork technique can demonstrate its most important strengths.

Thomas Kuhn (1996) described knowledge as “intrinsically the common property of a group or else nothing at all”, explaining that the discoveries of sciences or the products of arts to be recognized as it shall be shared between the members of a certain community. What Bruffee (1995) called the social construction of knowledge, has become the base to encourage the use of group work techniques in different levels of education. However there are still many critics to this method, basically referring to the difficulties to manage the classroom and its adequacy to different areas of study. The debate over teamwork in colleges and universities hasn’t delivered a clear answer yet.

This research paper will first explain the virtues and weakness of the “Collaborative Learning” method in order to establish finally its possible application to Architecture Education.

The Strengths of the Method

Background

Since the early 70’s, educators characterized the “traditional approach to Education” (Ventimiglia, 1994) as being “professor centered”, considering that the educative process depended exclusively on the knowledge capacities of the teacher, who decided what kind and what amount of information should be deposited into students minds. This was strongly criticized by Freire (cited by Ventimiglia, 1994), for being passive and not stimulating critical thinking. From then educators have researched new methods capable of improving academic results and preparing students to transform their societies creatively. This is how what Foyle (1995) called “Collaborative learning”, appeared as a possible answer to educational dilemmas.

DEFINITION

Collaborative learning, as well as cooperative and active learning are terms used to describe new procedures in education, intended to help students learn by working together (Bruffee, 1995). According to Ventimiglia (1994) collaborative learning is the process in which a community formed by students and teacher establishes common goals and participates as partners in the building of knowledge, following specific steps and accepting precise responsibilities. Group work is therefore one of the various tools involved in the execution of the method, however they should not be considered as synonyms.