The Necessity of Studio Education in Empowering the Urban Planning Students for Applying the Knowledge through Constructivism Learning Models

The gap between profession and education in many courses of study is due the fact that the learned knowledge in the universities is not practical. Considering the collation of theory and practice in teaching the students, the urban planning has provided the opportunity for the students to evaluate and analyze their acquired knowledge in the theoretical classes and organize them as mental constructs and then apply them in practical studios, as semi-real situations. Therefore, the main shortcoming of urban planning students in their professions is the knowledge transfer in the process of education. Empowering the students regarding transferring their knowledge is highly essential because the profession environments have been very competitive and the employers aim to employ professional work force. The benefits, necessity, and the importance of having practical education in urban planning curricula and the expected qualities from urban planning practical studios were examined first by urban planning teaching theoreticians and then were studied through constructivism learning models and finally the main strategies were proposed from constructivism learning models.