Shaping the Future – UTEC Polytechnic Summit 2018

I recently attended the Polytechnic Summit 2018 at UTEC University in Lima. It was the first Polytechnic summit outside of the USA and professors from Universities all over the world were attending. Although not a university professor, I wanted to attend to gain an insight into the developments within Higher Education provision for Design and Engineering.

In the beginning, I felt that the universities were a little behind in the times, with their lectures on active learning and use of technology in the classroom. I sat there thinking to myself…..high school teachers have been doing this for years…. Luckily it was later revealed that not all universities remain in the Stone Age and all that attended seemed to be experimenting with new methods of teaching course materials. They are beginning to move in the direction of Flipped Classroom (although not the term used) style learning as they see the benefits of project work and application in contact time, rather than a Professor led lecture with 30+ % of students dozing or absent.

In this Digital Age, we need Digital Thinkers, in my opinion, many schools are well aware of this and universities are now getting on board and harnessing the wealth of applications available to them and their students. It did worry me that students may be going backwards in their learning by entering an establishment that teaches using old-fashioned methods, but I am hopeful that this style is being abolished for more modern, technology driven alternatives.

Several workshops mentioned the layout and design of lecture rooms, rather than an auditorium style, universities are beginning to opt for project areas, with different levels and break out spaces to allow for teamwork and creativity.

I took a few key elements away from the Summit:

The first was the concept of T-Shaped learning (promoted by Purdue University in the USA) to prepare students for industry. It demonstrates the importance of combining the depth of knowledge required, the methods of providing this content and finally the employability skills deemed most sought out by employers. However, these elements alone are not enough; they must be combined with innovative learning methods that breed creativity, real world experiences and industry partnerships to truly build unique graduates prepared for the real world.

The second was the ‘shelf life of a degree’. How long do degrees last for? Or, at least the skills gained and knowledge learnt. The Design Industry is constantly changing, every year new software, upgrades, new equipment, and materials. It is all very exciting and costly! When I studied Graphic Design and Communication all those years ago, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop blew my mind at university…now I am teaching them to P6, 3D printers didn’t exist, a laser cutter was a distant dream! Within Design and Technology today’s generations are able to engage with technologies at a much faster rate, but this also means we need to keep students aware of the changes in the careers available to them. Degrees and careers exist today that did not not exist 5 years ago, UX Designer for example. It made me aware that we need to broaden our student’s knowledge of the opportunities available to them not just at university level, but also in industry.

The final element that caught my attention was a comment made that ‘competition based formats linked to start up business ideas and projects are detrimental to learner development’. After helping run the F1 challenges, running other competitions in class and being part of these types of projects during my own schooling and higher education, I thought this person was clueless. This statement contradicted many of the other elements of the summit. How can combining real world experiences and the urgency brought by competition be a bad for development?

I came to realise that this statement had some sense. The danger lies in the competition. When we award something, we ‘deem’ all other work as not good enough. We only celebrate the top work. We provide an extrinsic incentive rather than an intrinsic incentive. The work of those who do not receive a prize or award becomes undervalued and can be detrimental to the students’ development and self-worth. There is of course the argument, that some students will put more effort in than others, should they not be rewarded for their additional efforts? It is a difficult scale to balance. Competition will always exist, and students need to be prepared for losses as well as wins. All of these thoughts and ideas have been noted, and will inform my future planning where a competition may be involved, all work must be awarded and valued, focus must move to the majority rather than the few. The focus should always be placed on the learning opportunities and offer reflection to allow all students to gain from the project whether or not it is a competition.

All resources from the Conference can be found here: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/polytechsummit/2018/