Beyond the university walls: immersion in the Bairro da Paz community for the development of global skills

Due to its transdisciplinary nature, teaching Architecture, Urban Planning, and Design, requires the exploration of pedagogical models that expand students' physical and cultural boundaries, fostering the development of theoretical and practical skills, and bringing them closer to professional life. Thus, the internationalization of student education becomes a fertile ground for research into new methodologies that involve the aforementioned expansion and fieldwork. This paper aims to describe and critically analyze a pedagogical experience of a hybrid, synchronous, and cross-cultural course, conducted collaboratively between faculty and students from two higher education institutions in different countries: Brazil and the United States. The effectiveness of this model for developing design and transversal skills is examined from the perspective of the students. This course combined synchronous remote activities with a period of in-person immersion in the Bairro da Paz community, in Salvador (BR). The precepts of competency-based learning and neurolearning were applied in both stages of the course, raising challenges inherent in the articulation of virtual collaboration and short-term practical immersion. Through a questionnaire completed by the students, it was possible to raise questions about their engagement with the social context studied and possible asymmetries in the application of the methodology. This experience provides insights into new pedagogical practices in the context of the internationalization of education and the role of competency-based learning and neurolearning, as well as digital technologies in mediating intercultural work in the fields of Architecture, Urbanism, and Design.