Architecture Education in (COVID-19) Pandemic Analytic Study for (Online Learning for Building Construction Courses)

Abstract

In March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially announced the COVID-19 outbreak as a global Pandemic, during this time, the Egyptian government announced closing the schools and higher educational institutes, hence, the commitment to online learning in schools and faculties become mandatory to prevent the spread of the virus. From this point, the lecturers of Building Technology Courses in Modern Academy for Engineering and Technology were tasked to find ways to teach the course without physical contact with the students nor access to campus facilities traditionally used to run the program and its associated courses. In fact, it became a challenge because, Building Construction Courses considered one of the core courses in architectural education after the design courses, which means, any defect in teaching these courses will affect directly in the educational process. Furthermore, bachelor architecture programs for design and building construction courses for undergraduate student in Preparatory and Sophomore years are usually associated with the direct interaction between the lecturer and each student. This paper argues the evaluation of an operational model prepared for the design and building construction courses to overcome this challenge, then, examining this model through a questionnaire prepared to evaluate the efficiency and deficiencies of online-learning for two Consecutive courses for building construction and materials (1and2) by using an online learning platform as an alternative method for education, as well as, discussing the final result for the two courses to evaluate the operation model effectiveness, and improve the e-learning process for the coming semesters.