MARCH WINDS AND APRIL SHOWERS BRING FORTH MAY FLOWERS 

Asst. Prof.Dr. Badiossadat Hassanpour

Very soon we found ourselves in the midst of a pandemic which forced us to migrate to a new way of education and technology situated itself in functional needs of educators.

Being engaged in an online educational environment with a lot of things demanding preparation, attention and control, fast and accurate navigation is achievable by practice.

However, drawing the attention of students, keeping them motivated, assuring the quality of the design process and achieving a good design product through on-site teaching tactics and strategies remain as challenges.

These days architectural design education (especially in first two years of undergraduate program) is experiencing swift and unprecedented orientation to technology.

A deliberated introduction of technology to teaching and learning experiences can usher unique educational values and cultural capitals already established and flourished in our on-site to our on-line architecture design studios.

I believe through this we are going to stay relevant to future of architectural design education.

 Whatever this future is going to look like….. 

HANDLING THE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES POSED BY CORONAVIRUS

Senior Instructor: Seyit ERMİYAGİL

 Research Assistant: Pooya LOTFABADI

Studying in the traditional educational system was a contractual relationship between the students and the university. However, the emergence of Coronavirus has forced the world to switch to distance education. Beyond the practical and difficult challenges of switching from face-to-face education to virtual system, ensuring that students still have access to the best possible education is a considerable hurdle for EMU faculty of architecture with more than 1400 students.

What are the advantages of online education?

• Students can be more flexible and can set their pace,
• They can create their own personal comfortable learning environment,
• They may have more interaction and also greater ability to concentrate,
  
• Students may improve their technical skills in parallel with the course contents.
  
  

How Do Online Design Studio Work?
In order to make this online method truly effective, students must be engaged and participate in active learning. In this regard, Microsoft teams, which is supported by appropriate adaptive learning tools such as 'Invision' and 'Whiteboard' is used in this course. This program gives the opportunity of drawing simultaneously by multiple users. It can also provide daily data on each and every students' activity and progress, which is a crucial issue in design course. 

Example of Design studio critics.

Are Online Classes Easier Than Traditional?

Poorly implemented online system may create an isolating experience for students. However, communication technologies have advanced in ways that radically improve the ability to connect across time and space. By this estimation, students not only encounter all mandatory coursework, but also gain experience with new technology as one of the advantages of online classes. Thus, we all hope that this new platform transforms the learning experience into one, in which all students have a much greater likelihood of success.

Getting ready for a new era with COVID-19

Prof.Dr. Şebnem Önal Hoşkara

I see the transition to online education as “compulsory" for the universities, “challenging" for the instructors, “collaborative" for colleagues and “motivating" for the students.

For architectural education, it is a new culture of “experimentation" which can lead us to richer and more collaborative educational platforms and can increase and even support mobility for all of us, including our students. For the profession of architecture and urban design, the transition to online education means getting ready (in our design solutions as well) for “change" in the use of 'home', use of personal space, use of public space, use of city space; it is a means to convert 'domestic space' to an 'educational space' as well as a 'multi-functional' one with other activities such as sporting, dancing, entertaining, etc.

For all these reasons I intend to use this period as a “learning process" in collaboration with my friends, colleagues, and students, trying to turn this “negative" situation into a more “positive" one (Not Covid19 positive of course!!!). Learning new methods of teaching, learning new communication means, learning how to cope with struggles in life, learning to adapt myself, etc.

Let us hope that we will go back to our studios, classrooms, offices as soon as possible and meet our friends, colleagues and students; however, I believe, we should all be aware of the fact that nothing – including architecture and architectural education – will be the same as before Covid-19.

Therefore, let us get prepared for this, for a new era, all together at the EMU Faculty of Architecture. #staysafe #stayhome #stayhealthy

A new experience after 35 years of teaching

Prof. Dr. YONCA HÜROL

Everyone of us (teachers and students) was stuck at home or dormitory, etc after our university was closed because of the corona virus crisis… When I first heard about the online teaching option, I became very happy, because we cannot simply let our students (most of which stayed in Cyprus with us hoping that education will start soon) prisoned in their rooms for nothing and I was also interested in this new type of teaching. This would let us- as teachers- learn something new too.

At the beginning I hoped to use Microsoft Teams very effectively. But then realizing that the course materials also need substantial development, I gave the priority to updating course materials. This was necessary because we were using the whiteboards and internet in our live classrooms to support our class materials. In the area of buiding technology and tectonics, it is impossible to lecture without making any changes for more than one or two years, because of the new innovations and new tectonicly valuable pieces of architecture. Therefore, I started to update our course materials and I am still continuing with this. This means content became suddenly more important than the perfect use of the electronic system. Today we all see that the corona days might extend longer. Therefore, after updating the course materials, I may also find time to develop my lecturing in the Microsoft Teams environment.

Another issue about the online education is the enthusiasm of the students about this type of learning. There is certainly more attandance of students than the past live classes. Ofcourse, we do not know if they all really listen to the class or not. In any case, the really attending students make serious contributions to the lectures and they are also very helpful.

Seeing students as dots at the bottom of the screen and as a list of attendees on the right side, is strange. However, when I ask something or when I call them for some reason, they answer and this makes me feel better. I hope the submissions and exams will also be useful and most of our students will not loose this academic term. I would also like to thank the Higher Eduaction Council of Turkey and North Cyprus, EMU Rectors Office, Faculty of Architecture and Department of Architecture about their very considerate action and their help about the online education. Without this online education and without knowing where we are going, we (academics and students) were all going to get psychologically lost. 16.4.2020 Monarga, Cyprus.

First impressions of our faculty members in transition to Online Education

Prof.Dr. Uğur Ulaş Dağlı

Dean

COVID-19, which I have never heard of before, changed my lifestyle like everyone's. While trying to get used to conversations via Whatsapp, Skype, Microsoft Teams, I quickly recognized that my home was turning into our faculty building and university campus virtually. My daily life and working life are mixed together. My life has been synchronized with online applications. Virtual conversations have become part of my daily life.

Curiosity was suddenly replaced by surprise and excitement. I found myself researching applications related to architectural education, watching videos, installing programs over the internet.  And I suddenly realized that I moved from online document sharing to screen sharing and I was proud of myself. While following the ever-changing YÖK / YÖDAK circulars and press releases, on the other hand, I realized that we made the decisions in a short time, regarding the duration of the critics to be given to a student, how to complete the curriculum, and how we will make the exams / juries. I think we have adapted to the digital age.

Despite the difficulties, it was exciting for me to solve the problem without sharing the same physical environment. I believe this will be a different experience for students as well. In fact, the situation we are in, allows the application area of the profession to expand further. It is the preparation of making a project / design and discussing the details of the project for customers in any region of the World.

I become online in parallel with the whole world in one day, I got used to the screens. I even started to love the screens.