Abstract
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Arizona State University implemented online courses in the Fall of 2021; this research examines a graduate-level online co-design pilot course in which students came from interdisciplinary backgrounds. Most students had never taken this type of online co-design course before, providing the chance to understand how novice students could work together more effectively. The authors interviewed the students in the class to explore how online co-design affects interdisciplinary student collaboration and participation. These online co-design courses work well in many situations but still leave several gaps. First, many students attended the co-design course for the first time and did not understand the course structure. They were confused about the whole process and their corresponding role in the class. Second, there were still some barriers involving cooperation between the students within their teams; more actions could have been taken by enforcing the arrangements and communications, and some teams did not fully fulfil their roles. Third, the team members lacked deep knowledge of the tools' functions and how to use them effectively to help the team accomplish the task. This paper aims to help universities and teachers develop new co-design teaching models in the future. Although there were some problems with the structure, most students agreed that they learned to be good facilitators, collaborate with other disciplines, and actively express their opinions in a group.
Keywords
Co-design, Interdisciplinary, Team collaboration, Course structure
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.316
Citation
Wu, X., Ning, Y., Jung, K.,and Yu, H.(2023) Explore the online interdisciplinary co-design in higher education, in De Sainz Molestina, D., Galluzzo, L., Rizzo, F., Spallazzo, D. (eds.), IASDR 2023: Life-Changing Design, 9-13 October, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2023.316
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
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Explore the online interdisciplinary co-design in higher education
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Arizona State University implemented online courses in the Fall of 2021; this research examines a graduate-level online co-design pilot course in which students came from interdisciplinary backgrounds. Most students had never taken this type of online co-design course before, providing the chance to understand how novice students could work together more effectively. The authors interviewed the students in the class to explore how online co-design affects interdisciplinary student collaboration and participation. These online co-design courses work well in many situations but still leave several gaps. First, many students attended the co-design course for the first time and did not understand the course structure. They were confused about the whole process and their corresponding role in the class. Second, there were still some barriers involving cooperation between the students within their teams; more actions could have been taken by enforcing the arrangements and communications, and some teams did not fully fulfil their roles. Third, the team members lacked deep knowledge of the tools' functions and how to use them effectively to help the team accomplish the task. This paper aims to help universities and teachers develop new co-design teaching models in the future. Although there were some problems with the structure, most students agreed that they learned to be good facilitators, collaborate with other disciplines, and actively express their opinions in a group.