ABSTRACT

Most educational courses for built environment professionals incorporate an element of ‘practice’. Professional education involves, in addition to the more widely understood pedagogical purposes of learning and concept building, enhancement of personal skills (such as conflict resolution and negotiation), expertise in the use of tools and techniques and an understanding of the way the professions work in the real world. There is a growing ‘vocabulary’ of forms of practice-based professional education.

This paper explores the purposes for, and ways of including, a component of ‘practice’ in built environment professional courses, especially in urban planning. It then identifies important major issues and problems which arise in doing this and suggests ways of improving practice-based education.