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What makes a university course memorable? Perhaps it’s an innovative assignment, a new technology or a dynamic lecture. Memorable teaching, however, begins somewhere else entirely. In my experience, it begins when students engage with a perspective that fundamentally changes how they understand their discipline and their responsibility within it.

As educators, we are preparing students to become professionals. Whether they are future architects, engineers, educators or healthcare professionals, they will spend their careers making decisions that will affect lives in ways they don’t yet understand. That realisation has shaped the way I teach.

Architecture students, for example, learn to use drawings and models to persuasively communicate their creative vision. But how can they design meaningful spaces that also accommodate abilities and perspectives beyond their own experience? I’ve found that the answer isn’t another lecture. 

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This is not a niche concern; people with disabilities, for example, comprise 16 per cent of the global population and more than one in four people in the US. Yet in architecture, as in many professions, they remain significantly under-represented. That makes it all the more important that future practitioners not only learn about accessibility standards in the classroom but also learn from the people these standards are intended to serve. 

Invite the community into the classroom

For the past five years, I’ve been partnering with the Virginia Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired, which provides services and resources to people with vision impairment across the state. We invite community members to become collaborators – co-educators – in my courses rather than subjects of discussion. Students participate in orientation and mobility training with a white cane, learning how to safely navigate space without relying on sight and, most importantly, they spend time listening to people whose experiences challenge their preconceptions of “good design”.

Students who could confidently explain accessibility standards discover that knowing the code is very different from experiencing an inclusive environment. A compliant wheelchair ramp is still physically demanding. A hallway that appears intuitive on paper may be confusing for someone navigating without sight. Students begin noticing sound, texture, airflow and sun direction, alongside more conventional considerations of composition, form and aesthetics.

They move beyond designing for compliance and begin thinking about designing for people. That shift changes their line of enquiry. Instead of asking: “Does this meet the minimum standard?” they ask: “What kind of experience does this create?” Instead of viewing accessibility as a checklist, they begin to see it as an opportunity to create environments that are more intuitive, dignified and welcoming for everyone.

Those are the conversations students remember long after a well-delivered lecture. And I’m not suggesting that these experiences replace traditional instruction; I maintain that they deepen it.

Lessons beyond architecture

Although my work focuses on architecture, this lesson is relevant to most fields. Every discipline has its own version of “the code” – technical knowledge, professional standards, established practices that students must master. Those foundations matter. But excellence in higher education means helping students move beyond technical competence towards professional judgement.

Most universities already have remarkable partners nearby: schools, non-profit and community organisations, healthcare providers, advocacy groups and local government. Too often, we think of early career experiences – shadowing, interning, volunteering – as extracurricular experiences. Why not recognise them as an extension of professional education?

When community members become co-educators, students encounter perspectives that faculty alone cannot provide. They appreciate that expertise isn’t confined to universities and that the people most affected by a design, policy or service often have the deepest understanding of what works – and what doesn’t. Perhaps that’s why these experiences resonate so deeply with my students. 

In many ways, this kind of learning is becoming even more important. Artificial intelligence can help students generate ideas, analyse information and accelerate certain aspects of the design process. What it cannot do is build genuine relationships or cultivate empathy. The capacity to listen carefully and question assumptions remains distinctly human, and these skills are some of the most valuable qualities our graduates can possess.

If our ambition is simply to graduate technically competent professionals, then lectures, textbooks and hypothetical design projects may be enough. But if our ambition is to graduate professionals who improve the lives of the people they serve, students need opportunities to learn with communities, not merely about them. The courses students remember most are rarely those that gave them the most information; they are the ones that meaningfully changed how they see the world.

Andrew Gipe-Lazarou is an assistant professor of architecture in the College of Architecture, Arts, and Design at Virginia Tech. 

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