The challenge of architecture pedagogy lies in the broadness of teaching the art and science of architectural design and theory. In a simple sense, architectural education aims to nurture creative skills and technical knowledge with the underlying principles of design. Despite its long history, architecture pedagogy for first-year students continues to prove a considerable challenge. The teaching of first-year architecture students is a sensitive and fundamental domain of architectural teaching. The current study applies action research to compare and evaluate two different, and distinct pedagogical approaches, towards learning by the first-year architecture student design studios. We have conducted a sequential assessment with a cohort of 32 first-year architecture students between two different semesters. Two teaching methods of case-based learning approach and the progressive teaching method were performed in the foundation studio. Three faculty members evaluated the design projects submitted by students based on an assessment rubric. Both the quantitative evaluation and the given scores were used to assess the performance of both methods of teaching. The progressive teaching method was evaluated significantly better in terms of quantitative scores and students gained higher scores than case-based learning. The progressive method has shown substantial differences in the design skills of novice students. The student’s understanding of drafting, dimensions, and circulation was greatly better with the progressive teaching method. In conclusion, these specific improvements facilitated by this action research can contribute significantly to the advancement of architectural education.