Abstract
Design educators must learn to develop and lead successful intercultural projects and exchanges for students entering into a globally connected and diverse profession. Teaching students to approach problems by using collaborative and interpersonal skills provides them with durable assets to better understand international audiences, colleagues, and perspectives. The proliferation and integration of first-hand cross-cultural experiences into design curricula can result in innovation and knowledge sharing, indicating synergistic properties in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This research explores how collaborations between geographically separate design students in San Francisco, California, USA and Dubai, UAE—mediated by virtual communication—can impact learning, cultural awareness, and audience sensitivity. The two distinct courses challenge students to work together in teams, understand a range of audiences, give and receive critical feedback, exchange projects, and respond with culturally sensitive design solutions. The paper introduces the rationale, methods and design-related outcomes of a series of collaborations to encourage design educators to develop cross-cultural methods in their own classrooms.
Keywords
Cross-cultural, design education, collaboration, internationalism, cultural perspective, virtual communication
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.100
Citation
Murdoch-Kitt, K.M.,and Emans, D.(2013) City reflections: design collaborations for cross-cultural learning, in Reitan, J.B., Lloyd, P., Bohemia, E., Nielsen, L.M., Digranes, I., & Lutnæs, E. (eds.), DRS // Cumulus: Design Learning for Tomorrow, 14-17 May, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/learnxdesign.2013.100
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Included in
City reflections: design collaborations for cross-cultural learning
Design educators must learn to develop and lead successful intercultural projects and exchanges for students entering into a globally connected and diverse profession. Teaching students to approach problems by using collaborative and interpersonal skills provides them with durable assets to better understand international audiences, colleagues, and perspectives. The proliferation and integration of first-hand cross-cultural experiences into design curricula can result in innovation and knowledge sharing, indicating synergistic properties in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This research explores how collaborations between geographically separate design students in San Francisco, California, USA and Dubai, UAE—mediated by virtual communication—can impact learning, cultural awareness, and audience sensitivity. The two distinct courses challenge students to work together in teams, understand a range of audiences, give and receive critical feedback, exchange projects, and respond with culturally sensitive design solutions. The paper introduces the rationale, methods and design-related outcomes of a series of collaborations to encourage design educators to develop cross-cultural methods in their own classrooms.