Teaching Innovation in Architecture & Construction: Renewable Assignments that Turn Building-Science Learning into Open Toolkits

This lightning talk shares a university teaching innovation in Architecture and Construction that replaces textbook-only learning with open pedagogy and renewable assignments. In a building science / construction technology course, students use a structured set of evidence-based “strategy cards” (passive and low-demand measures for thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and overheating resilience) to diagnose a real building case and propose feasible retrofit actions. Instead of submitting closed reports, students iteratively improve the strategy cards, create construction-ready checklists and decision trees (constructability, sequencing, risks, and basic cost/impact notes), and publish a curated set as openly licensed OER (CC BY) for reuse by future cohorts. The teaching design includes short inputs + worked examples, peer review, and a rubric assessing technical accuracy, clarity, accessibility, constructability, and reusability. Learning evidence is gathered through rubric performance, brief pre/post concept checks, and documented quality gains across versions (versioning).