Abstract:

Background:
The Intercultural Design Camp (ICDC) is a collaboration between the Schools of Creative Practice of four European higher education institutions. Piloted in 2009 in Munsingen, Germany as a one-week summer school, the focus of the project was to strengthen internalization by increasing student and staff mobility. This pilot was very successful and acted as a catalyst to staff and student Erasmus exchange and the sharing of best practice in Learning, Teaching and Assessment between the partners. A second self-funded pilot camp was undertaken in Dumfries, Scotland in 2010 continuing and intensifying the experiences from Munsingen. Parallel consultations continued regarding the progress of the ICDC project to become a two-week event in order to allow student participants the time to develop and produce an extended piece of Cross-Media product.
These consultations finally lead to an application for funding within the EU ERASMUS Intensive Programme. The third Design Camp, funded by the EU, took place in Grebbestad (Sweden) in August 2011. Further ERASMUS funding has allowed planning for a fourth ICDC in Kemmel, Belgium, in August 2012 and a fifth in Pforzheim, Germany in 2013.
Utilization of a virtual learning environment for International communication between students, testing of video-conferencing technologies for virtual staff meetings as well as student assessment and feedback are the key aspects of the concept for the coming ICDC camps.

Learning Teaching, Assessment and Feedback:
The concept of the ICDC is designed to extend and further the student’s abilities and participation in contemporary methods and practices associated with creative media practice and convergent production. At the camp, and in response to given briefs, an International group of students with divergent backgrounds and skill-sets, come together in small creative teams to develop and produce a collaborative project in which a range of ideas, experience and technologies converge. These Collaborative Projects often have an on-line output, whether through products devised for streaming, pod casting or interactive broadcast. An innovative variety of projects are encouraged. These could include digital photography and the moving image, interactive design and performance, site-specific installations and exhibitions.

Students are also encouraged to experience contemporary creative context within the areas of practice while at the camp. This is delivered via lectures given by the visiting and host staff and also from external partners. Students are also encouraged to evaluate the benefits of a variety of production approaches and techniques. The project encourages participants to gain solid experience of working in interdisciplinary creative teams.

The team has developed innovative approaches to learning and teaching over the past four ICDC events. These include the utilization of a range of pedagogies, which include ‘traditional‘ lecture based activities, practice-based workshops and individual and group mentoring. Feedback is given at many points during the two-week project and the team is facing the challenge of utilizing a complex range of Formative and Summative Assessment methodologies.
In the full paper we will describe the new Assessment and Feedback strategies in more detail using the project briefs and examples of student process and artifacts produced at this year’s Design Camp in Kemmel, Belgium.

Keywords:

Intercultural communication, Assessment and Feedback, media convergence.