VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY

Abstract

This continuing research argues for an alternative instructional model integrating active, embodied graphics for foundational architectural structures. This teaching and learning model seeks to improve on the conventional lecture-drill format by combining current trends of modern pedagogy : multimedia-associative learning, embodied learning, and collaborative learning. The research limits its scope to the initial structural topics which challenge many architecture students: forces, equilibrium of forces, and simple truss analysis for internal forces. The alternative model of instruction and the modified quasi-experimental methodology for gathering data, refined 2018-2019, were used to answer whether integrating active, embodied graphic techniques contributed to the students’ learning performance. Two classes, approximately 30 students each, per spring and summer, from 2021 to 2025, form the sample population. This latest iteration assigns “control” to the computation-dominant Method of Joints (MoJt) and “intervention” to the graphics-dominant Maxwell Diagram (MaxD). Students, instructed in both approaches, select their preferred analysis method to employ in their assessment, the midterm exam’s major task of simple truss. Performances were evaluated based on completed task processes, outputs, and efficiency. Data does not show a clear preference for the proposed graphics-active method and may be influenced by less tangible social and naturalistic factors in the students’ overall learning environment. However, findings across the last five years do point to the graphical MaxD approach outperforming the conventional MoJ approach in terms of correctness and completeness of analyses, as well as efficiency of task completion. These 5-year cumulative results suggest better performance and lend support for the integration of active, embodied graphics-actions into the instructional approaches for introductory architectural structures.