Challenges in synchronous e-learning in architectural education

Abstract

Distance learning is a centuries-old method, from first correspondence courses to educational broadcasting. It eventually evolved into e-learning, where the acquisition of knowledge is managed via electronic media and nowadays, the Internet became the prominent medium for information delivery. The use of internet technology and applications allowed two-way communication between students/audience and lecturer/presenter, either simultaneously, or with a time-lag. Despite its long-standing history, e-learning methods still preserve their novelty in terms of changing the traditional ways of face-to-face learning methods in which both lecturer and audience are considerably much familiar with. In an Erasmus + partnership project titled Re-use of Modernist Buildings (RMB), the use of both synchronous and asynchronous e-learning methods was concerted within the context of a joint master’s programme that is planned to be established by the partner universities. Concerning the decision to employ e-learning, some synchronous seminar and lecture sessions were tried and tested both during an RMB project workshop and within other university courses. A survey was conducted after each session in order to understand students’ opinions on e-learning in comparison with traditional classroom learning. In this paper, open-ended responses collected through the survey are examined in detail, and comparative analysis of personal opinions and comments in relation to certain Likert scale questions are reported in order to review and discuss participants’ perspective on the synchronous e-learning session attended. In this respect, a brief introduction regarding the RMB project and e-learning is provided primarily, followed by the synchronous session cases and evaluation method, and finally, the findings are presented and discussed with examples.