Abstract:

In the last decade, it has been proven that Collaborative Learning among groups of students generally yields positive results. The experience conducted by professors and students from three international universities in the European project "European Interactive Industrial Design Studio (EINSTUDIO)" has led us to reflect and propose a series of improvements to be considered in future similar projects.

The project entailed finding solutions for the design of industrial products by various groups of students trained in engineering and industrial design. The manufacturing of any product inherently requires the participation of different specialists who contribute from the generation of the main idea to the validation of the physical product with its technical and economic viability analysis.

With globalization, job outsourcing, and new technologies, it is common to find design teams from different cultures and disciplines. This was one of the aspects addressed in this project and a significant hindrance to the timely development of the final product.

This article presents the implementation of the project, specifically detailing how communication among students was carried out and how project tracking occurred on a weekly basis. Through the analysis of this experience, the authors aim to highlight the challenges encountered during project implementation and propose a series of improvements to prevent future issues, with the goal of maximizing the performance of international work teams.

Keywords:

Collaborative learning, online education, cross-cultural projects.