HYBRID TEACHING IN PARTICIPATORY URBAN PLANNING

In its simplest terms, a participatory approach in spatial planning is a decision-making process in which everyone who has a stake in the proposed intervention process has a voice, either in person or by representation i.e. target population, community officials, governmental representatives, property owners, interested citizens, and/or people from involved agencies and other institutions/organizations. Within a participatory process, everyone's contribution should be welcomed and respected, and the process shouldn't be dominated by any individual or group, or by a single point of view. A true participatory approach is one in which everyone's opinion is considered. However, this does not mean that everyone’s demands and wishes would be realized or none would challenge other opinions or assumptions. In fact, participatory process is a process of consensus building in which a common ground accepted by all or majority is formulated. Urban planning is a challenging process taking decisions on spatial, social and economic dimensions of settlements where diverse and various actors and stakeholders are involved during the process and/or affected at the end. There are different methods and tools to create a participatory environment in urban planning – some are conventional such as public hearings; some are more innovative including e-participation tools. Learning different methods and tools of participatory processes, as well as the roles and motivation of actors and stakeholders in urban planning would be beneficial for city planning students to be more equipped after their graduation. Yet, learning participatory processes by passive learning methods based on theoretical discussions would result in limited learning outcome, as participatory processes are dynamic processes which could be learnt in depth by active learning methods based on applications and simulations of participatory processes. Thus, it is considered that both theory and application should be covered together in such a course for a complete learning outcome. Besides, learning only conventional methods and tools would not be sufficient for a complete learning outcome, as methods and tools in participatory processes are evolving and changing in parallel to changes in IT technologies, communication technologies, and availability and variety of digital platforms. The general aim of the project is to create a virtual learning environment for city planning students in which they can learn both the theoretical context of the participatory processes in urban development and its practical implementation, incl. exploring various examples from different countries, and experiencing participatory processes in urban development by focusing on a case study area. Aiming this, the project consists of two consecutive courses handling both theoretical and practical aspects of participatory processes. The Fall/Winter Semester 2021/22 course will focus on learning theoretical context and exploring examples from Turkey, Germany and other countries. The Spring/Summer Semester 2021/22 course will focus on the application of the theoretical knowledge acquired in Fall/Winter Semester on a selected case study area. The consecutive courses are designed and will be conducted by 1 professor from University of Kassel, G.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Umut Kienast-Duyar, and 2 professors from Mersin University, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tolga Levent and Assist. Prof. Dr. Yasemin Sarıkaya Levent. The courses are offered as compulsory elective courses for city planning students in graduate level in the Department of Sustainable Cities and Communities at University of Kassel and in the 4th year bachelor level in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Mersin University.

01.10.2021 – 30.09.2022 TOLGA LEVENT, YASEMİN SARIKAYA LEVENT