Abstract:

Interdisciplinarity has for a while been recognised as a valuable feature in education, as it prepares students for dealing with increasing levels of complexity. Moreover, integrating knowledge from diverse areas and sources to form new ideas or artefacts is regarded as a core aspect of creativity. Consequently, it is clear that students in scientific and technological areas require not only “soft skills” but a deeper understanding of the humanities. Likewise, students from areas traditionally associated with the arts and humanities, such as design, need practical knowledge of science and technology. In the European context, the Bologna Process has privileged interdisciplinary learning. However, there remains a tug of war between the need for specialisation in certain areas and implementing satisficing interdisciplinary initiatives. These obstacles are worsened by bureaucratic procedures and organisational difficulties specific to each country and university.

Starting in 2017, at our institution, a “pedagogical practices” initiative was launched to involve students in interdisciplinary projects spanning our faculty’s four areas: design, technology, communication, and marketing. The initiative met with many obstacles from the outset, including frequent changes in the coordination team, lack of enthusiasm and participation from teachers, and operational hassles. However, one of the most ambitious projects—the CROSS spring semester—managed to grow and consolidate despite difficulties, becoming the most extensive interdisciplinary “synergy” at our university. The CROSS is a semester-long collaboration between two English-taught BA programmes: Games and Apps Development (GAD) and Global Design (GD). GD follows a holistic, integrative approach to design practices, focusing on visual experiences, interactions, services, and strategic designerly knowledge. GAD follows a more technical-centred approach than similar courses in its domain of knowledge, focusing on programming instead of mixing artistic practices and coding. Both programmes are entirely based on Problem-Based Learning and have a similar structure: a nuclear “project” curricular unit supported by five subject-specific curricular units. The CROSS spring semester has turned into the de facto model for our pedagogical practices.

In this paper, we describe our experience planning, implementing, and managing the CROSS spring semester, from the first, almost failed iterations to the current implementation, where students are finally participating in a functional multidisciplinary endeavour. We will describe the operational difficulties involved in coordinating a dozen teachers with different areas of expertise and 80 students from different cultural backgrounds. We will show how our approach involves students in “co-operative multidisciplinarity” actively working together towards a complex common goal—in this case, the conceptualisation and development of a videogame. We will discuss how in that process, they acquire the intended skills from their respective areas, design and programming, and practice soft skills and project management skills. We will then show how the CROSS model has proven its resiliency during the ongoing pandemic. Finally, we will summarise how the CROSS has served as a model for the rest of our synergies. We expect this account to spark discussions about the difficulties and benefits of bridging education in design, technology, and communication.

Keywords:

Design, game development, interdisciplinarity, pedagogical practices, higher education.