AN ALTERNATIVE ARCHITECTURE GRADUATE COURSE CONDUCTED THROUGH DISTANCE EDUCATION AND ITS IMPACTS ON STUDENT LEARNING PROCESS

Abstract

A multidisciplinary atelier course conducted through distance education in Kocaeli University Faculty of Architecture Graduate Program in 2020/21 Fall Semester is analyzed in this article concerning the impacts of the alternative and versatile methods followed during the course process on student learning achievement. The aim is to reveal the new pedagogical visions and contributions that the methods of this course can provide to student learning and instructor intervention in architecture graduate education. During the course, the stages of determining the workshop groups, discussing the activities with the groups, and developing suggestions, conducting discussions in the distance education environment on the students' study subjects and activity plans, and delivering the final report based on the activity week process and the products obtained were carried out. The required data, including the evidence of actual learning achievement in this course, is derived from a catechetical survey with 12 students who took the course, while the final statements and inferences of the study are based on the achievements and critics of these students about the course. The results obtained from this survey are reciprocally evaluated with the learning achievement targets that are placed in the course syllabus at the beginning of the semester with concrete numerical values to observe the level of achievement of these learning targets. The learning achievements that students gained most apart from the determined learning achievement targets of the course are the development of presentation abilities of students, the provision of exchange of ideas with students from different departments and with the lecturers apart from their thesis advisors, and the possibility of following the processes of different work items. The findings of this study express that the program and the methods of this course can be instructive for implementing new approaches in post-pandemic distance and face-to-face education of architecture in graduate programs.