UCOL Whanganui collaborates with Shanghai students in creative course

Second Shanghai Polytechnic University lecturer Ronald Van de Cappelle with design students ready to collaborate with UCOL Whanganui. Photo / Supplied

With travel border restrictions still in place, how does an education provider deliver a global learning experience to students?

Thanks to a collaborative effort with Second Shanghai Polytechnic University (SSPU), UCOL Creative Industries students have taken part in a four-week interactive design course based in Shanghai.

UCOL Whanganui students have spent the start of their year attending classes via Zoom, alongside third-year Bachelor of Product Design students at SSPU.

"Our relationship with SSPU started in 2019," UCOL's head of school for Creative Industries, Victoria Campbell, said.

"They've come to New Zealand and visited us in the past, and we've run workshops and presentations on the creative process at their campus."

Covid-19 may have forced the traditional teaching rulebooks out of the window, but that had not stopped UCOL and SSPU from nurturing their talent pipeline, Campbell said.

"There's shared mutual respect and an understanding that what's good for the student is good for the school. We saw an incredible opportunity to collaborate, and so we made it happen."

SSPU's director of product design Lin Cheyne said the integration had many benefits for student's in Shanghai.

"Through our co-operation with UCOL, teachers and students of different professional backgrounds from both sides are integrated with each other. This co-operation broadens students' horizons, enhances their design capabilities and jointly cultivates design talents with international competitiveness."

Campbell said the collaboration took months of planning and preparation for the delivery of the course and both institutions were motivated to achieve a common goal of ensuring students experienced the best of all worlds.

Whanganui meets Shanghai in online learning collaboration. Photo / Supplied

SSPU student XinYu Cai was impressed with collaborative learning and found it enlightening.

"This course expanded our perceptual thinking and its new teaching method enabled us to talk about design concepts with more possibilities."

SSPU-based design lecturer Ronald Van de Cappelle was instrumental in ensuring that UCOL students got an inclusive learning experience.

"With Victoria Campbell's visit and classes to SSPU in 2019, UCOL is no stranger to us in Shanghai," Van de Cappelle said.

"This offline-online course opened the windows of our classrooms and is definitely a new way to connect, learn as an international community, build understanding and create friendship."

The course covered lessons on the Internet of Things, mind mapping and how to prepare and present a design pitch, among others.

Whanganui Learning Centre graphic artist and author Deb Hill and Yeoh Guan Hong, co-founder and creative director of supernature design in Shanghai, also joined in as guest speakers during the lessons.

UCOL student Lisa Lightband found the learning exceeded expectations.

"Achieving greater success than expected in an international programme has given me a newfound confidence that is already paying off in my studies," she said.

"UCOL and SSPU went above and beyond in ensuring we had opportunities to collaborate and embrace innovative design."

UCOL students worked on the final presentation together with SSPU students, via Zoom and WeChat. The group spent the first three weeks working on interactive product concepts before presenting them to the wider class.

"It was a great experience for all students involved – to work with each other from across the world, on a successful final team presentation. It is our professional and flexible collaboration with UCOL, as well as the open minds of the students involved, that made our new hybrid teaching method run remarkably smoothly," Van de Cappelle said.

Campbell said the two institutions were already planning another collaborative project.