Learning-by-making in building science education

The School of Architecture & Design at the University of Tasmania has a long history of incorporating a ‘learning by making’ pedagogy to the teaching approach within building science, design studio and elective units. Its role within building science has increased and been reinforced by the Course and Unit review processes for two key reasons. Firstly, students’ prior knowledge and experience of building have significantly changed. Secondly, the influence and effect of constructivist learning model (Biggs & Tang, 2011) when ap-plied at course, year and unit level, resulting in unit content modifications. These processes have lead to a change in the order of building science content delivery and a strong inclusion of learning-by-making activities within three of the six undergraduate building technology in design units, (of which the author is the unit co-ordinator). This paper focuses on the use of the learning-by-making principles with the Building Technology in Design 1 unit. This paper will discuss the in-tended learning outcomes, the workshop based learning-by-making experience, and linkages to the assessment tasks.