Unreal … a typology for learning from virtual site visits

Experiencing existing spaces and designed environments, as well as engaging with their possibilities and production, is fundamental to students' learning in construction and built environments disciplines. Site visits serve a range of learning objectives, and offer a place and a mode to practice professional expertise. The major dislocation of learning and teaching precipitated by COVID-19 required reimagining these authentic and valuable site experiences. This article explores the design of virtual site visits (VSVs) through the lens of teaching activities and learning aims, and describes a VSV typology developed through a phenomenographic approach. The typology draws on exemplars and related interviews with designers and educators from across a built environments faculty of a comprehensive Australian university. It distinguishes between those developed to inspire and contextualize; those that demonstrate or demarcate; and those that ground abstract experiences via specific locations. This work suggests complementary roles for virtual and physical site visits within hybrid and flexible learning environments, even while much teaching returns to campus. It is relevant to academic developers who seek to frame the use of VSVs through learning rather than technical lenses, and all educators who aim to incorporate site experiences for student learning … wherever they are.