Keywords Abstract
Rehm, Michael, , and Deborah Levy. "Blended Learning: Best of Both Worlds." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016.

Blended learning which combines online lecture delivery with interactive face-to-face tutorials provides students with added flexibility, better live, work, study balance and is found to enhance student learning. Several appropriate undergraduate courses taught by the University of Auckland Business School’s Department of Property have adopted blended learning which students overwhelmingly prefer over traditional in-class approaches. Through innovative features such as closed captions, live-streaming and bring-your-own-device student engagement systems, the Department is at the cutting edge of crafting pedagogy that meets the unique needs of digital natives.

Thompson, Bob, and Bob Martens. "Case Studies on Blended Learning in the Context of Real Estate Education." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016.

Aims & Objectives: Blended learning has been operational for nearly two decades. Normally this would be long enough for optimal models to have evolved and regimes to be established to measure the effectiveness of the techniques employed. However, blended learning involves the use of technology – at least in part – and almost twenty years is a long, long time in technology terms. Real estate has the reputation of being a slow adopter of technology. The objectives of this research were to establish how blended learning had advanced in the context of real estate education.

Approach: A preceding presentation at the ERES 2015 annual conference explored first of all different blended learning models and examined the components of a typical blended learning system including tools for content management such as course/module management, delivery and moderation. On the occasion of the ERES Education Seminar in Delft a subsequent survey with accompanying structured interviews was presented. This inquiry was conducted with representatives stemming from either schools of built environment or business schools and was based on a questionnaire about the incidence and nature of blended learning in real estate education specifically.

This research: The methodologies used with the online survey are triangulated with some in depth interviews and case studies of particular implementations - picking up points raised on the previous two presentations.
Implications: In some quarters, the use of technology in teaching is itself contentious but this research has shown its adoption to be inexorable in real estate education. It has identified very real concerns about the nature and structure of courses and the skillsets of lecturing and course management in a blended learning environment but also identified some real positives about student engagement and outcomes.

Significance: This research records the status quo and finds that real estate education is lagging in the adoption of blended learning. It should act as a call to arms for faculty and students to demand better.

Daams, Michiel N., Tom G. Geurts, and Frans J. Sijtsma. "Leveraging Real Estate Education with Students’ Real-World Observations: A Diary Approach." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016. Curiosity; Diary Approach; real estate; Reflective Learning; Scientific Education

This paper discusses how real estate education can benefit from letting students keep a scientific diary. This scientific diary approach entails that, as a complementary course activity, students keep a diary in which they reflect on any real estate related news, projects, daily observations or policies that fascinate them or attract their attention or curiosity. Personal curiosity, while a fundamental driver of science, often lacks a formal role in real estate courses. As such, diaries may help, in a modest way, to enrich the classroom as well as the teacher’s perspective on the thoughts and personal development of students. In this paper we frame specific pros and cons of the diary approach within the educational literature, whilst paying special attention to the traditional lecture approach and the recently popular flipped classroom approach. To empirically illustrate what real estate diaries may bring about, the current study offers a content analysis of the entries in diaries kept by two cohorts of students of the University of Groningen Master’s program of Real Estate Studies and a cohort of students of the George Washington University School of Business MBA program. We show results of a systematic categorization of the 200+ diary posts as to their content and form. We conclude with a discussion of the possible merits of this approach. One of these merits is a broadening of the topics that students study within the (pre-fixed) study program. Another is that recent events, impossible to be captured in textbooks and academic literature, are actively connected to. The openness of the diary approach may help to make students’ own-level thinking about real-world observations more serious, in small steps, through a process of exploration and writing. In addition, diaries can be discussed in-class in a group setting, under the teacher’s supervision, in order to share observations and discuss knowledge- claims. This practices the framing of real-world observations within existing theory as well as the assessment of whether alterations to theoretical models are needed to understand the observation at hand. We hypothesize that practice of this type of reflection on fresh issues in the ‘daily real estate life’ of students may lead to a stronger connection between their academic training and the professional field of real estate.

Amidu, Abdul-Rasheed, and Osahon Ogbesoyen. "Mapping Academic Curriculum to the Industry Needs: Cases of Real Estate Education in the UK." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016. Academic Curriculum; Industry Needs; Mind Mapping; real estate; UK

The objective of this paper is to explore the extent to which current real estate academic curriculum in the UK align with industry needs in order to identify key areas for reform. A case study of four Universities was undertaken in the study. These cases were randomly selected from the Midlands, Northern and Southern parts of the UK. Data for the study was collected through a desk-top review of real estate curriculum from the four selected Universities and analysed using mind mapping approach. The study revealed that though knowledge from real estate academic curriculum aligns with the industry in six out of nine knowledge base areas, there were gaps in knowledge in the three areas considered most significant to the needs of industry. The study, therefore argues that universities may have dedicated enormous resources to educating real estate graduates in modules that are not necessarily essential to their daily job roles. This study is important in the sense that it is the first ever conducted to identify the key areas of the curriculum that show gaps in real estate education offered by universities in the UK. The findings of the research could inform future curriculum reform.

de La Paz, Paloma Taltavull. "New Orientations in Real Estate Education Methods." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016.
Goodchild, Robin, Stephen Roulac, Tom Geurts, and Paloma Taltavull de La Paz. Panel Discussion: Real Estate Investment – Theory & Practice In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016.
D’Arcy, Eamonn, Bob Martens, Deborah Levy, and Selma Carson. Panel Discussion: Technology, Blended Learning and Value Added in Real Estate Education In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016.
McGrath, Karen, and Tom G. Geurts. "Protecting Property Rights as a Prerequisite for Successful Real Estate Investment: An Educational Game Approach." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016.

Aim and Objectives: Geurts and Jaffe (1996) presented the results from an educational property rights game they created. This game teaches the students how a framework of well-protected property rights leads to more productive real estate investments. The aim of this paper is to improve on the explanations provided in that paper.

Design / Methods / Approach: This is an in-classroom educational game, where students simulate production using real estate under varying levels of property rights protection. As such this is an interactive teaching method with a self- directed learning approach.

Findings: It shows that the better their property rights are protected the higher the productivity. Although most of the actions of the students during the game could be explained, some of the outcomes seemed not rational. Indeed, Geurts and Jaffe wrote “We have noticed that peer pressure to work can hamper this process” with regards to irrational behavior. The authors of this paper attempt to expound on some of the unexplainable behavior in the Geurts and Jaffe paper and in addition provide some alternative views for the explanations provided in that paper, using a behavioral analysis.

Research Limitations / Implications: Educational games are typically used to explain some theoretical concept in a self-directed learning approach, however the theory is often based on rational behavior. The outcomes of the educational game can therefore be different from what the theory predicts, which can be considered a limitation to the approach. However, a behavioral analysis, as presented in this paper, might explain the outcomes better and provide for a better learning experience for the students, since the outcomes can fully and/or better explained.

Originality, Rigour and Significance of the Study: This is an original game developed by one of the authors of this paper, which was published in one of the top peer-reviewed journals of the field, namely the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. This is of course no guarantee that this paper is of similar rigor and/or significance, however it shows the relevance of this topic and approach: Teaching students under which circumstances an investment in real estate is most successful.

Roulac, Stephen E.. "Six Honest Serving Men – plus two – Question Real Estate Investment Theory and Practice." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016.

A century ago, Nobel literature laureate Rudyard Kipling, advanced the proposition that six critical lines of inquiry were fundamental to knowledge: What, Why, When, How, Where, and Who (Kipling, 1902) Had Kipling been writing today, likely he might have added two more honest serving men: Which and Whether. Knowledge derives from learning. In common with any significant, high-stakes, important undertaking, knowledge of real estate investment – its theory and practice — is a central critical success factor. Learning is the intended byproduct of education. In the 21st century that education is expected to be both rigorous and relevant, concurrently sound in theory and practical in application. Real estate investment knowledge — specifically, how real estate investment theory and practice are conveyed through education — can appropriately be considered through addressing Rudyard Kipling’s Six Honest Serving Men – Plus Two.

Keskin, Berna. "Virtual Reality in Real Estate Education." In 12th ERES Education Seminar. ERES: Education Seminar. Nottingham, UK, 2016. Innovation; Oculus Rift; Virtual Reality

In the last years Virtual Reality (VR) techniques such as Oculus Rift have become an alternative teaching tool in the Urban Studies programmes. Having provided 360° imagery and tracking, as well as binaural audio, Oculus Rift facilitates a more immersive experience which would fully engage students in a real world replica of any place and space. The Urban Studies and Planning Department at the University of Sheffield, organizes international field trips that allow students to analyse planning in rapidly changing cities. In recent years, the field trips have been to Istanbul, but rapidly emerging security threats in early 2016 required an urgent review. Module leaders were therefore required to carry out a significant rethink as to how the learning outcomes , centred on developing students’ abilities in urban analysis, could be met through an alternative way than a physical field trip. Therefore virtual reality techniques provided the engagement and analytical framework to ignite students’ critical thinking. The experience of using virtual reality tools in urban planning teaching is very new, and this pioneering approach will be used to further develop teaching in the Department. Since VR techniques can be applied to large range of scales, from city level down to room level, would this innovative way of teaching therefore be transferable in real estate education?