A Novel Form of Distributed Interdisciplinary Project-Based Design Education

The efficacy of project-based learning (PBL) in design education has gained broad acceptance. Moreover, when PBL takes place in teams, it resembles design practice more closely, and offers an attractive value proposition to educational institutions for producing highly employable graduates. Therefore, most state of the art design curricula utilize PBL principles. Some innovative design curricula also recognize the significance of interdisciplinary practice, and organize student teams such that different functions associated with key disciplines of design projects are represented. Rather than asking students to wear another discipline’s hat for the duration of project, there have been few structured attempts at recruiting students with backgrounds in different educational disciplines so that a true interdisciplinary and international setting is achieved. This scheme is particularly meaningful when complex design tasks are tackled. The Project Oriented Learning Environment (POLE) is one such educational paradigm [4]. This paper describes the POLE platform and its technical substructures; it discusses an assessment methodology, and presents key findings. The outcomes are used to substantiate a theoretical framework for distributed interdisciplinary projectbased design education.