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 enough to be in teaching/instruction roles have opportuni- ties to not only share our knowledge but to also build new experiences with students as we explore the many facets of architecture. As the Dunning-Kruger effect reveals, we don’t know what we don’t know and we aren’t aware that we don’t know it (Dunning, 2011). Keeping an attitude of a lifelong learner helps break our limited awareness and align perception with reality. Although there are various influences that lead students to study architecture, I have not met a student who answers the “What led you to enroll in architecture courses” question with anything to do with acoustics or the aural environment. Perhaps more acousti- cians need to attend high-school career days! Nonetheless, I am pleased to introduce students to the invisible realm of acoustics pertaining to health, safety, and welfare in the built environment. I brought my love and knowledge of acoustics to the University of Oklahoma (OU; Norman) Gibbs College of Architecture (GCA) through an introduction to design concepts and sensibilities, technical and material science, and passive and active systems. The GCA houses vari- ous majors and offers courses to students from colleges across campus, so my sphere of influence is not limited to architecture students. To date, I have introduced over 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students of diverse backgrounds and disciplines to architecture and asso- ciated aural environments. The GCA does not have a dedicated acoustics laboratory (yet) or series of courses specializing in this area of study, so the scaffolding of topics is completed through hands-on experiments, field measurements and data collection, the study of musical instruments, precedent studies and literature reviews, laboratory and manufacturing facility tours, and material prototype fabrication with industry partners. Combining experience and an interest in architecture and acoustics as a common thread of pedagogy throughout various teaching opportunities helps students analyze and design spaces that are acoustically supportive for their functions. Pedagogy: Method and Practice of Teaching Students learn the results of shaping space not from merely the cool factor of twisting planes in software or molding physical materials into an attractive form but from how the shape of space and the materials used to delineate an enclosure have embodied results that impact the health, safety, and welfare of occupants. The enclosing elements, which define exterior from interior space, often have code- pendent/symbiotic thermal, structural, air quality (from outgassing), fire and smoke resistance, and acoustical properties that can be measured and accounted for during design. Obviously, there are various other factors such as how color, texture, patterns, and the composition of mate- rials impact/affect the mood and atmosphere. Learning how design decisions result in compound relationships with occupants helps students base architectural decisions on more than mere aesthetics. Beauty can be the func- tional result of all the influences. What is a pedagogical approach or, more specifically, my approach to teaching architecture with a relationship to acoustical properties? My passion is for people to understand architecture in a way that encourages, edifies, educates, entertains, and evokes responses from occu- pants. There are various approaches to teaching that are expressions of personalities, experiences, and attempts to convey content coupled with audience reception. Architecture programs are evaluated through an accredi- tation process requiring assignment goals and learning objectives to be defined as demonstrated through under- standing and ability. Lecture and design studio courses provide opportunities for students to convey knowledge through exams, assignments, and design proposals that embody the course content. Assessment of acoustic impact on successful design can be aligned with meet- ing required program and student criteria. Vitruvius, a first-century Roman architect, engineer, and author, characterized sound propagation through air and materials like a wave from a pebble cast into a calm pool of water. Those ripples of resonating content are a metaphor for the learning process: repetition, reinforcement, and demonstration of both understanding and ability. Today, I wonder if people do not really listen to their surround- ings; they may hear, but do they really listen? All too often the architects of tomorrow are wearing earbuds today. The first step is to encourage students to listen to spaces. Archi- tecture is the physical medium changing a free field into a series of materials that reflect, diffuse, and absorb frequen- cies. By placing students in that context, they experience how sound waves and vibrations relate to everything in the built environment. I teach students to evaluate the shape of occupied and unoccupied volumes of space, the mate- rials used to define enclosure, and associated quantifiable acoustical data such as sound transmission class (STC); Summer 2022 • Acoustics Today 25 


































































































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