Have You Felt Blue or Red? A Colour-Based Tool for Culturally Plural Teams

Abstract

The extensive practice of collaborative design-based learning and the increasing cultural plurality of design courses in Design Education is becoming relevant. Students' critical reflection on teamwork experience through structured activities of self-, peer and group evaluation can provide a space for students to ask themselves pertinent questions and to discuss together with the team about each one's reflections. A guided sharing of personal perspectives on teamwork reveals to students the existence of multiple perceptions and increases mutual understanding and sensitivity. To this extent, a colour-based assessment tool for teams, the Teamwork Colour Matrix (TCM), was designed with the idea that colours can take on very different associations for each individual and therefore can leave more freedom of expression, especially when it comes to evaluating teamwork. Students intuitively coded their experience concerning the different moments of teamwork and represented it inside the TCM by using eight given colours. The paper presents the qualitative data collected during the TCM redesign and remote application, showing how it can support students to reflect and evaluate plural remote teamwork, at the same time it helps teachers to monitor team dynamics within collaborative design-based learning courses. The test also provided rich data about the challenges students experienced in the current collaborative distance learning context, contributing to acknowledging students' learning trajectories in this type of course.

Peers as Experts to Cooperate With: A Case Study of Teaching Activities to Switch From Inter-Group Competition to Collaboration in a Design Studio

“…Consequently, peers, self and the community should become an authority and knowledge source beyond the teacher [1]. Previous research in the situated context conducted by the authors showed that teambased instructional projects support these shifts at a team level but might also favour a competitive interteam environment [2]. Such competition often hinders collaboration and knowledge exchange at a class level.…”

“…Moreover, in school systems where grades are less relevant, students approach projects more casually, leading to self-directed and peer learning. While emphasising evaluation encourages constant commitment, it may discourage risk-taking and knowledge exchange with other teams in the class [2]. Given this contextual observation, the paper aims to present a case study of an instructional design project aimed at reshaping the interactions between teams within a team-based design studio from a highly competitive inter-group climate to a more collaborative one.…”