The Pedagogy of Building Information Modelling

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been made mandatory for all UK Government contracts over the European threshold. This has led to its hurried adoption within Higher Education Higher Institutions with many adopting... [ view full abstract ]

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been made mandatory for all UK Government contracts over the European threshold. This has led to its hurried adoption within Higher Education Higher Institutions with many adopting similar pedagogies to those used for teaching CAD. This paper seeks the views of the BIM Academic Forum, set up to establish a common BIM curriculum in the UK and Ireland on the pedagogies that should be adopted in BIM teaching. It finds that as BIM is more than just a technology, and as such a different pedagogical approach to that used in CAD teaching should be taken. This approach while in the main constructivist, learning by doing, should also have components taught using didactic methods. The findings further indicate that educators need support from accreditation panels and industry in adopting this new technology which will continue to evolve over the next number of years.