Situated Learning in Online Architectural Studio Education

Abstract

The pandemic causes acceleration in the development of online education. Relatedly, instructors have started to transform already applied methods in studio education and have produced new teaching methodologies in remote education. Since the communication channel in the new system is exposed to a change that creates that open an area for the search of situated learning in terms of interaction among students and between students and instructors that is strongly associated with Vygotsky’s theory of the zone of proximal development in which social interactions is emphasized in learning. In this paper, the components of situated learning will be reading through an online design studio in architectural education. The changing concept of studio culture will be inquired from the issues of the learning environment and situations executed after the shift from physical to digital encountering. Moving of design studio into the online environment brings particular changes to the two aspects of the studio culture, which are studio as a method and studio as an environment. In this respect, an online design studio will be examined as a contextual framework with the theory of situated learning.