What a architecture student should know 2014

level to the autonomous level of the professional designer. Some architecture schools have a distinct culture which indicates the direction students must take. Most teachers educate others in the same way they were educated, but there are those who question their own experience and introduce new approaches. Teachers who stick to one educational doctrine and who are not receptive can encounter problems as a teacher. A high degree of flexibility is essential for dealing with any problem that may present itself. Some students can become more aware and fully engaged in their projects by using literary or poetic expressions, others by looking at them in a technical way. The question that a teacher must answer is: Does the student understand criticism? Can you develop a conversation? It can take some time for the student to realize that you can hardly create a comprehensive foundation to use in solving an assignment. In the design studio, learning on a need to know basis is an answer to the uncertainties that arise. Not only do the students expand their knowledge in this process; the teachers do also.

According to researchers in the field of creativity, architecture students are high on the scale of cognitive ability; they possess more visual than verbal intelligence, a high level of flexibility and a preference for complexity. At the individual level, though, different combinations of the intelligence types labeled by Howard Gardner may be present (see also Chapter 4). For the students to initiate a creative process and formulate a problem—when others don’t notice anything—a teacher must have the skill to respect the students’ different talents and individual ways of thinking. Donald Schön (1990) wrote that the student has to learn to listen operatively, imitate with their own thinking, and reflect on the teacher’s and their own work process (knowing-in-action).

The lack of definitive answers is not only hard for the students, as described in the first chapter, but also for the teachers. One of the teachers at Louisiana State University says: Initially they [the students] get frustrated because they want me to give them the answers. It’s disconcerting for them to learn ASSESSMENT REVIEWS: STAGE AND ACTORS