El Árbol de la Arquitectura

Edificio 13, Universidad Pompeu Fabra. Autor: Juan Navarro Baldeweg

Mientras la arquitectura siga haciendo posible espacios como este, la arquitectura no desaparecerá.

10º Aniversario del Colegio de Pedagogos de Catalunya

El mismo día de la celebración del 10º aniversario del COPEC sale la  Revista EIX, en la cual viene el artículo "Música, Diseño y Sistema Educativo" escrito por Eugenia López Reus y Miguel Jaime. El artículo propone extender a todo el sistema educativo la pedagogía reflexiva responsable del éxito del Sistema de Orquestas de Venezuela y las prácticas reflexivas del taller de diseño.

The Future of Architectural Education

The future is currently the most uncertain thing to think about. But present is not easy to understand either: what is going on right now has become a matter of experts, no common sense stuff. Education is not an exception, and architectural education even more.

The best idea to get a glimpse of how future architects will be taught is to ask the experts. The link takes to 5 very short essays by educational experts (click on them and they will open) that predict future architectural education.

The point of view of this blog is that, in the near future, architects will become aware of the fact that they have been self-teaching themselves for more than a century now, so they will have the opportunity of starting doing it better, much better. This is the reflexive (r)evolution ahead in pedagogical terms, not only in architecture but especially in it.

Figuring Things Out

Professor Eleonor Dockworth, cognitive psychologist and pedagogue, describes learning in a perfect Deweyian manner: "figuring things out".

We all shouldn't forget that figure is synonym of design, so to figure out (which means understanding, learning, thinking) means in some way designing, designing in our minds. Any more proofs needed of the connection between designing and learning?

The New School

Classrooms are over. Dewey, Vigotsky, Schön would be moved by this picture. Education is going in the direction they suggested, at least in some places. The school in the picture is Orestad College, in Denmark.

The building was done trying that the "physical structure supports the visions of knowledge sharing, interdisciplinarity cooperation and competencies". The bad news is that it is only happening in North European Countries. The good news is that class is over.

Improving Teaching

Since 2009, the MET (Messuring Effective Teaching) Project, is trying to make objective remarks on good teaching practices. That's the way more teachers can improve the way they do things later on. Improving, is what education is all about, and improving education is the most reflective iniciative ever (except designing, of course).

Education Affordability

The best educational system in the world is so, among other reasons, because the President, the first citizen and his wife, would not have been so if it was not for the grants and loans that give everybody a chance.

The speech at University of Michigan is about the importance of an affordable educational system.

Presentation Skills

Lectures are the most popular (used) means for presenting contents to students. The video is very good because its content is about the main subject education should have: attitudes.

Multiple ways of presentation (as UDL suggests) is the best way to improve communication in the classroom. Hope lectures improve a bit after this eyes opener video.

Stop SOPA

21st Century's Ph.D

Photo credit: katerha/Creative Commons

Academy can't remain unaltered if the world has changed, because Academy is in the world. Those of us that have spent nine years or more writing a doctoral dissertation of hundreds of pages and extremely deep subjects -and still are keen on learning- know it.

It is not that long dissertations were useful in the past. It is that their usefulness remained unnoticed then. New ways of researching have to be accepted. Traditional literary effectiveness has to be a requirement for Ph.D dissertations: if it does not impact the soul of the reader it should not be considered a valuable piece.

The link takes to an excellent discussion at Inside Higher Education on the subject. Follow it