Culture & History 2 Project 2

Name: Cheong Yen Sin (Jovin)

Student ID: 0328050

Tutor: Ms. Balkish

Subject: Culture and History II

Opinion: Why architecture students think that the history of architecture is boring and what are the solutions.

As we know, the education system of Malaysia has set the History as one of the compulsory pass subjects in the national test taken by the secondary school Form 5 students in order to obtain the Malaysian Certification of Education. From this action, we know that History is an important subject but are disliked by most students. I am one of the students who dislike History, as I feel the subject is boring and hard to study. I studied history for the sake of passing my SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia), like most of my friends agreed on. After graduating from secondary school, I chose to study architecture course at Taylor’s University. Well, I still have to study history after all, but I thought that the history of architecture might be different and interesting, and obviously, I am wrong.

History of architecture is quite alike with the History subject. The similarities between the subjects lie on the teaching method and content format which is the framework of the history.

To be honest, the students think that it is boring. I once again study the subject for the sake of passing my exams. By doing this method, I realised there are reasons whereby leading students in disliking History. I have discovered some solutions that might break the stereotype of History as a boring subject.

First of all, the main issues are that students believe that History is boring due to its content.

From my experience, I always think that history is uninteresting and dull, based on the content itself and the way it was delivered. In university, there are no textbooks for History subjects, which I think is great news since textbooks are always full of words and B&W (Black and White)

pictures. Because of this factor that leads to students find it to be boring. The lecture slides for History subject in university is not much different from the textbooks as the slides are full of texts but with more pictures. We have to study the revolution of different countries and the changes in architecture or memorizing the characteristic of distinct buildings in different era and country. For me, the only way to study History is by memorizing important details such as the names of architects and buildings. You may ask “Why memorise instead of understanding it?�, this is because of the content itself. When the content is uninteresting, it is harder for the students to remember thus students prefer to memorize the details as it is easier.

Secondly, the lecturer is not helping in making the History interesting. The content of History is boring enough, thus lecturer should make the History class more interesting for the student.

Instead, the lecturer teaches the student by just reading the slide. What difference does it make if the students read on their own? The teaching method stays the same as in secondary schools. The most common scenario is that teachers blabbering and students end up falling asleep in classes. Students find that listening to lecturers or teacher blabber about history as their lullaby. This is because of the same monotone voice of the lecturers and teachers using while lecturing, there is no intonation whatsoever. This forces students to pay less attention and understanding during classes. I think that this is an older way of teaching history which is lecturing, question and answers. This method is commonly used to teach history and it is boring.

Third reasons that cause History to be boring is the assignments and exams are not adventurous or meaningful. For example, my previous assignments just required online research or reading the books to complete the assignment. With this type of assignment, students only get to know the little details about the topic and not understanding the whole story of history. It is also not as adventurous as the other subjects we have, especially the studio subject. With such assignments, it would not increase our knowledge or make use of history in our life. The assignments will end up being submitted for the purpose of grades only.

This is not what architecture should be like. There are issues in the format of the exams as it required students to memorize the lecture notes in order to answer the questions given and achieving a good grade. With that being said, students just memorise History to achieve good grades and not really understanding it.

Thus, I would like to suggest a few solutions that might increase the interest of students toward history. To solve the first issue, I think that the content of History should become more interesting. How to achieve this? By changing History? What I’m trying to say is to change the presentation of content as in a storybook which can raise the curiosity and excitement of the students. Furthermore, I believed that images, diagrams or videos can really help in making the students understand more. I always remember images or videos instead of words. With the aid of diagrams, students get to understand and remember as it is more interesting. Psychology also proved that images and videos are easy to stay in the human mind instead of wording. To add on, lecturers may also make the content to be more diverse and interesting by adding more images and graphics since there is no limitation of textbooks in university.

Back to the second issue, which is the way the class was conducted. In order to catch the attention of students, the lecturer should try more creative ideas such as applying the methods of drama, concept maps, the station method and role-playing session between students. This creative and interactive way of conducting class would really make a huge difference compared to the old traditional way as it can evoke the curiosity of the student thus resulting them to look forward to history class. When students are active during the learning process, the lectures will be more professional and comprehensible. Lecturer themselves can also try to make the lecturer slides to be more interactive or interesting by using stories, novels, and memoirs that will be more entertaining for students. As most lecture classes in university may be restricted in a lecture hall or a small classroom, the lecturer should put in more effort and emotion to make it as a story-telling while delivering the lectures.

Lastly, the solutions to the third issues as mentioned above is to prevent the lecturers in providing a simple and not in-depth assignment. Assignments that are given to students should involve reading famous and significant publish about the history of architecture or having site visits to some significant building. This will make students to understand history from architecture itself instead of words. Besides, small discussions or assignments should be held in classes in order to increase the interactivity between students and lecturer. Then, as for the exam, the exam format should be modified by applying more HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) questions to challenge the students. This would help the students to develop creative thinking skills and also apply the knowledge of architectural history in daily life or in the design of the building. Revision class that involves activities or discussions would help students to

handle the history exam better. This is because it will allow students to attend the class more often with more attention given and further on developing a full and clear understanding of history.

My conclusion to all these opinions and thoughts that I have mentioned is that History is described as, “the branch of science that analyze past events referring to their places, dates, and actors based on resources in a framework of causal relationships� (Metin, Date Not Mentioned). From this statement, we know that history is not just made up by a past event, it also provides us knowledge and lessons and preventing us from repeating the same mistakes.

This is why History is really important for us to remember. Notwithstanding, most of the students are not interested in History and study it just to fulfill the examination-oriented education. Learning history in this way will negatively influence the learning outcomes.

In my opinion, I think that actions and solutions should be taken to make students become more interested in History. The university and lecturer are the main power to work things out, by improving the content of history, changing the presentation of the class or even reformat the exams. And just like this, students like me, who does not like History would be able to think History as an interesting subject. Things that we learned from History is to make students link between the past and present events in which they can avoid repeating the same tragedy and embracing a new life. Eventually, students will realize the importance of learning and understand history.

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Hamza.A & Meltem.E (2017). ​A Study of Student’s Opinions About History Subjects in the Social Studies Curriculum​. Journal of Literature and Art Studies, Istanbul, Turkey, p.

1347-1353.

Valerie.S (2017). Why so many students hate history - and what to do about it. The Washington Post, Washington, USA. Mario.C (2018). ​Opinion: We Can’t Go On Teaching the Same History of Architecture as Before.

MIT press, UCL, London.