[WEEF] 17 year evolution of the students’ perspective on innovative teaching, curricular development

17 year evolution of the students’ perspective on innovative teaching, curricular development and elearning in Europe Andreea Militaru, Cristian García, George Kladis, Marta Cortesão and Monika Tolgo Board of European Students of Technology (BEST) Brussels, Belgium marta.cortesao@best.eu.org

Abstract— After the year 2000, the world changed rapidly with the prevalence of internet, and globalization. This has changed the criteria and the expectations that companies have from their employees. Countries across Europe are undergoing curricula reforms towards more competence based approaches, emphasizing the importance of creativity, innovation and a learner-centered education. But how has European Engineering Education (EEE) developed in the last two decades? Board of European Students of Technology (BEST) has been, since 1998, gathering and transmitting technology students’ opinions on educational matters to interested entities. To provide insights on the general EEE development through the last two decades, BEST presents now a 17-year evolution of the students’ opinions on three main educational topics: innovative teaching, curricular development and e-learning. Gathered opinions indicate that the EEE has adapted to socio-technological influences towards constant curriculum development. The internet together with other technology advances lead to new ways of learning, such as elearning and virtual mobility, which in turn lead to an enhanced communication and sharing, emphasizing the social skills of an engineer. Nevertheless, there is still room for improvement. There is still the need to step forward, out of the entrepreneur hubs of innovation, to a global academia scale. The development of EEE will surely be as successful as the company-university-student common and proactive involvement. Companies need to be involved in study programs and help bridging the gap between the knowledge gained in university years and the skills needed in the corporate world. And the modern student should be open-minded, innovative, and communicative in order to be able to contribute to the global market.

Keywords— BEST, technology, e-learning, development, innovative teaching methods

I.

curriculum

INTRODUCTION

After the year 2000, the world changed rapidly with the prevalence of internet, and globalization has changed the criteria and the expectations that companies have from their employees. According to the Final Report on the Study on Creativity and Innovation in Education in the EU Member States by the European Commission, currently, countries throughout Europe are undergoing curricula reforms towards more competence based approaches, emphasizing the importance of creativity, innovation and a learner-centered education [1]. Why is that so?

The teaching and learning methods are a complex human experiences, thus educational bodies have tried to make it exciting and enjoyable, as well as useful later in the corporate world [2]. Research in educational field showed that in the last 2 decades these methods have evolved and technology was part of that. Prof. Dr. Murat Sönmez states that technology has been rapidly changing and becoming more complex, affecting engineering systems and the expectations and demands of job market. Engineers need to get interdisciplinary training to be able to adapt to the technological innovations and to succeed in a globally competitive business world via restructured engineering education system [3].

Nowadays, many organizations operate internationally, striving to motivate education professionals to arrange work placements and introducing students to international working environments. Different projects such as EU-VIP and PROVIP thematic networks are boosting interactions between higher education institutions, students and companies using the advantages of the newest technologies into e-learning. It is currently defined as the effective use of technological tools to enhance effectiveness of education [4-6].

The innovative teaching and learning methodologies have one goal - to constantly adapt the curriculum to the job market. The ability to provide the students’ with an adapted curriculum should result from overlapping the different expectations of future employers, academia and students themselves, finally bridging the gap between classroom teaching and engineering profession [7-8]. All this leads to one question: how has European Engineering Education (EEE) developed in the last two decades?

Board of European Students of Technology (BEST) is a nonpolitical, non-governmental and non-profit students association, counting with around 3000 members and reaching with its activities more than 1.3 million technology students of 96 Universities, each one represented by a Local BEST Group (LBG), through 33 European countries [9]. One of the main goals of BEST is to increase technology students’ awareness of educational matters, in order to help students with their selfdevelopment and to transmit input on educational matters to European higher education stakeholders by collecting individual opinions from students, the academic world and companies.

To provide insights on the general EEE development through the last two decades, BEST presents now a 17-year evolution of the students’ opinions on three main educational topics shown to subsist within the stakeholders discussions throughout innovative teaching and learning tools, curricular development and e-learning.

II.

APROACH

The results presented in this work are based on the outcomes gathered from around twenty Events on Education (EoEs), organised by BEST throughout a period of 17 years (Table 1).

These Events on Education constitute discussion platforms between educational stakeholders, such as students, academia and industry. The twenty-one EoEs analyzed in this study represent the opinion of around 400 technology students from European countries, also taking into account the company and university perspectives, regarding the drawbacks and ideal solutions for the development of several educational topics. To meet the stakeholders’ perspectives, BEST Educational Committee designed and facilitated several sessions during each EoE, mainly using group discussions and brainstorms, using methods such as Open Space Technology [10] and Learning Café [11].

TABLE 1. DETAILS OF THE EOES TACKLED IN THIS STUDY Year

LBGs where EoE was held

1999

Helsinki

Topics tackled

Counseling, Frames for Learning, University Management

1999

Cluj

Constructive Learning University Management

Theory

(CLT),

1999

Madrid

Curriculum development

2001

Helsinki

E-learning

2001

Trondheim

E-learning

2004

Tallinn

Mobility of students, recognition, system of degrees, innovation in EEE

2005

Rome Tor Vergata

The role of extra-curricular activities in the formation of engineers

2005

Aalborg

Teaching methods, E-learning

2005

Zagreb

Curriculum Development, Modern profile of engineers

2006

Porto

Active Learning

2006

Bucharest

Virtual Mobility

2007

Gothenburg

E-learning, student mobility

2009

Brno

Attractiveness of Engineering field, Mobility, Teaching methods

2009

Zagreb

Qualifications for modern engineers, influence of job market in university curricula

2011

Riga

Virtual Internships

2013

Timisoara

Virtual Internships

2013

Aveiro

Accreditation of soft-skills

2014

Gdansk

Virtual Internships

2014

Cluj-Napoca

Soft-skills, Innovative teaching methods, Personal Development Plan (PDP)

Reports from every EoE were created after careful analysis of the outcomes. Afterwards, they were evaluated in the search for the evolving overview of the stakeholders’ opinions and ideas on the three main educational matters that have been persisting in these discussions. Three main topics tackled throughout a 17-year period were distinguished: innovative teaching, curricular development and e-learning.

III.

E-LEARNING

BEST has documented changes on students’ perspective regarding many topics over the last two decades, and e-learning is one of them. Nowadays, e-learning is defined as electronic learning, and typically this means using a computer to deliver part, or all of a course whether it's in a school, part of your mandatory business training or a full distance learning course [12]. Ten years ago the understanding was different on many aspects. Still, some similarities regarding students’ opinion can also be detected in this period of time (Fig 1).

In year 2001, one of the first International BEST Symposiums on Education was organized. There, students reported elearning as student-teacher communication via information and communication technology. E-learning back then was divided into three categories: student-teacher interaction by e-mail, forums and chats or just lectures on the web (Fig 1). The goal was to make the communication between students and teachers quicker and less complicated, to be accessible at all times, to make learning more attractive and reachable for more people and to enable access to a wider range of information from everywhere. Disadvantages of e-learning were related to loss of human contact and technical problems: for example printing, lack of knowledge on computers and their software [13].

In another Symposium in 2001, the agreed concept of elearning was taken from EU Commission: “e-learning seeks to mobilize the educational and cultural communities, as well the economic and social players in Europe, in order to speed up changes in the education and training systems for Europe’s movement to the knowledge-based society.” Although the concepts from both symposia differ, the aim of e-learning still was similar: to give access to wider range of information for students all over Europe. Back in 2001, many different negative facets of e-learning were pointed out: different background knowledge of students, recognition, motivation of students and teachers, poor access to technology and technological skills and language difficulties [14].

In 2004 e-learning was defined as the concept of using computers and Internet in teaching processes (Fig 1). The advantages of e-learning were again documented very similarly to the ones from 2001. Two disadvantages were outlined as

well: loss of the human contact and no accessibility for all countries. Thus, students reached a conclusion that e-learning should be combined with more traditional methods to bring the best outcomes [15]. In 2007 students saw e-learning as computer-enhanced learning so the understanding was similar in 2001 and in 2004. Still, e-mail was considered as one of the ways to enhance learning and teaching like in 2001, yet it was seen more as a way to make student-teacher communication process less complicated. The drawbacks pointed out were more technology and language related again. The same conclusion was made in the end: e-learning should be combined with more traditional teaching methods [16].

Thanks to the development of e-learning, new possibilities appeared in high education field. In 2005 students found in elearning the opportunity of taking international courses [17]. In the following years Virtual Mobility (VM) [7] and Virtual Internships (VI) [18] were hot topics in EEE. In 2006, Virtual Mobility was understood as taking an abroad course without travelling. There are several advantages to virtual mobility such as having better accessible interactions between students with different cultural backgrounds, large flexibility coming from it and low costs of this mobility system. Students saw VM as a possibility of studying abroad for people with lack of resources.

Participants also agreed that there can be some challenges related to courses’ evaluation, technical issues and obstacles as well as lack of laboratories because of virtual classes [19].

In the last years many students’ opinions were gathered about VIs. In 2013 students found mobility, flexibility, and autonomy for interns’ really important advantages for VIs. They also found interesting saving resources for companies, having more free places in offices and empowering diversity of the interns. The most relevant obstacles students found were working in different time zones, the lack of social interactions and difficulties of physical access [20]. During an international Symposium in Gdansk 2014 the common definition established by participants was: “A Virtual Internship is a short-term working experience set up in a remote environment” [21].

Fig. 1. E-learning associated concepts used by students throughout the year. In 2001 chat, email and forums constituted the most used concepts when students though of e-learning, after three years, in 2004, internet in teaching processes represented the most common concept used in discussions, in 2006 Virtual Mobility was the outstanding idea in symposiums and in 2013 Virtual Internships acquired big magnitude in conversations.

All in all, European students’ perspective on e-learning has changed over time from tools improving student-teacher communication to using computers and Internet to enhance learning processes. Still, the advantages and disadvantages of elearning have stayed more or less the same. The most important advantage is to make information accessible to a large number of students and disadvantages are both the loss of social contact

and technical problems. Also, students’ general opinion about implementing e-learning to their curricula over the years has stayed quite the same: e-learning should be combined with traditional teaching methods for best outcomes. In the recent years the concept of e-learning evolved and students see Virtual Mobility, and Virtual Internships as a reality. Nowadays, understanding e-learning just as a way of communication between student and professor is misunderstanding the meaning of this concept.

IV.

CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT

Another topic that BEST has researched upon thoroughly through the years is curriculum development and integration of soft-skills development in modern curricula. Curriculum development is the constant process of improving university curricula and adapting it to needs of the market and the students.

After more than 15 years and 7 events documenting students’ perspective related to curriculum development content, BEST has accumulated knowledge on the topic, and it all points to one direction: there is no perfect curriculum and there is the need for constant development.

The first BEST event with content related to curriculum development was organized in 1999. Back then practical training was defined and divided it in two major sectors. One is technical training, which is more focused on developing hard skills and is provided at universities and companies through labs, internships, projects, etc. Then there is non-technical training, which provides additional knowledge on more softoriented skills through volunteering work in student organizations. The participants also discussed about the set of qualifications that an engineer should have. They unanimously agreed that they should firstly acquire proper technical knowledge. Then they should possess other skills like knowing how to find information, learn to learn and adaptability in the learning process. Some other equally important skills were also pointed out, like the ability to improvise, adapt the schedule to the changing conditions, change project or plans, think in a logic manner, be realistic, be able to analyze a problem and take willingly responsibilities.

In 2005, BEST collected the opinions of European students for the top of extracurricular activities. At first, the role of extracurricular activities was discussed. Students recognize the potential of extracurricular activities, where they learn how to solve challenging and real problems, using personal skills and knowledge. The participants are also mentioned that some of these activities, like the projects that BEST runs, are useful in promoting international cooperation and spreading the working mentality culture that companies are looking for.

Students stated that the different kinds of extracurricular activities should be grouped based on the outcomes that these activities have for students, so two main categories were proposed: activities related to students’ studies and their future career, and activities with outcomes of social skills, physical conditions related skills, creativity, competitions, organizing skills and cultural knowledge. It was also discussed how these extracurricular activities should be recognized. Participants agreed that recognition of extra-curricular activities is possible by assessing credits and permitting replacement of optional

courses. Another way is to mention the participation in such activities on the university diploma [23].

Also in 2005 students discussed the need of a flexible curriculum that is closely related to the needs of the market.

Nevertheless, there should be some kind of core curricula and then students should be able to choose among different courses in order to adapt to the job market. The core courses should be the same for all engineers across Europe, and the optional courses should be there to help students specialize in the local job market. Moreover, the first cycle of studies should be broad and the second more specialized. The second cycle should create an engineer who knows why, while the first cycle just only how to do things. Students also stated that what influences the market should have a role in university curricula. Thus, companies should act as an indicator that something is missing or is wrong in the curricula. The university should follow the trends of the market, but not be manipulated by them.

Companies should also influence the curricula by giving feedback to universities on it and can also help by close cooperation with the universities on the subject of internships [24].

In 2009 similar topics where discussed. Regarding the qualifications that an engineer should have, students agreed that the most important ones are: communication, creativity, good presentation skills, developed practical mind, teamwork, understanding of company organization, flexibility to work in a team and independently, ability to adapt to different working styles, ability to work under pressure, risk management, proactivity, problem solving and logical thinking. It was also agreed that when working in a multicultural environment i.e. multinational companies, it is important to know foreign languages, to be open minded and flexible with different cultures, religions and customs and to be skilled with the usage of internet communications. Another topic that was analyzed was the market influence on curricula. Students unanimously agreed that universities should cooperate with companies, in which new technologies are being developed or are fully implemented. Cooperation can be done through shared curricula, where company experts can share the knowledge during lessons. An important fact that was pointed out was that that majority of students haven’t experienced a fruitful cooperation between students-universities–companies (exception were students from Sweden and Poland) [25].

In 2013, students were asked how the soft-skills development during their studies should be integrated and accredited accordingly. The main problem is the poor feedback that students get from such activities from universities and companies. At that point in time, professors continued to work with obsolete teaching methods, which doesn’t involve the development of soft-skills, and they were not eager to help with the accreditation process. Also there is a lack of external supervision that would supervise and evaluate the part of the accreditation system when it comes to soft-skills. The students also proposed the creation of such international body that would coordinate the accreditation of skills and ensure the cooperation of students-universities-companies on such topic [26].

The last event tackling this topic was organized last year, in 2014. The topic was soft-skills development and how it should

be integrated in modern curricula and also the modern profile of engineers. At first, they evaluated the current situation of soft-skills implementation. They concluded that is very low in the participants’ universities. Also this depends on the university and thus students had very different experiences ranging from some universities, which offer soft-skills courses (usually as optional) to those, which discourage students to take extracurricular activities to develop soft-skills (because they are time-consuming). Then they proposed ideas for the improvement of soft-skills implementation. Such activities are tasks that require the use of soft-skills, promoting extracurricular activities, assigning group tasks and projects, adding case studies during the studies with cooperation with companies and also mandatory internships. Last topic that was discussed was the profile of modern engineer. A modern engineer should be responsible, creative, flexible, ready for competition and cooperation, eager to develop himself and learn lifelong, innovative, multidisciplinary, soft-skill-oriented, open-minded and a leader but also teamwork player [27].

Fig. 2. World clouds representing the profile of an engineer definition over the years. With this figure it becomes clear that the identification of the engineering-skills has been going on for 15 years and it is still evolving. There is a clear evidence that soft-skills and flexibility are two of the areas an engineer should develop.

All in all, the insight of European students on the topic of curriculum development hasn’t changed and the message that they try to promote is one: the need for constant change.

Modern job market request that the graduate students should possess not only hard skills, but also soft-skills. After examining the students’ output in events through the last 15 years, not big progress has been made in changing the curricula and integrating soft-skills development in the university curricula. Even though in some European countries, there has been recently some development, the average student doesn’t experience soft-skills training during their studies and sometimes they are even discouraged from participating in extracurricular activities to develop those. Another important fact that was pointed by the students through the years the profile of the modern engineer and the need to be openminded and internationally-oriented and the need to possess

not only hard skills, but also strong social, presentation and communication skills.

V.

INNOVATIVE TEACHING

Since the beginning of the 21st century, students have been concerned with their career as well as their quality and ownership of study life. The learning and teaching methods has suffered smaller but significant chances during the last 2 decades, being guided by the main needs of stakeholders: diversity, quality, internationalization, recognition and reachability. Based on this, the management of learning has been shaped during the last 17 years, being developed, together with innovative teaching methods and project based approaches (Fig.3).

solved: the basic need for real work experience, soft-skills development and team work.

In the middle of 2000s’ this innovative industrial tool was introduced and since then was worked upon, was improved and development till 2014 when the students can access different type of classes, trainings or projects designed to strengthen their skills and challenge their capacity to adapt information to a reallife situation.

Another revolutionary concept was e-learning, which appeared in order to fulfill the needs of internationalization and reachability. In 2006, ReVE (Real Virtual ERASMUS) was hot topic on European Engineering Market and it had as purpose to broad the learning experiences and to bring students closer by offering the same quality studies all over the Europe [30].

Nowadays, the MOOCs are offered by every big and respectable university, are free and available online.

In 2009 a research on teaching methods was done and plenty of innovative ideas were found [31]. The most interesting part stays in the fact that they are still used as mains teaching methods and learning tools, now in 2015 [27]:    

e-learning and virtual mobility traditional lectures exchanged with guest speakers, tutors, seminars, debates and sharing groups enriched internships and projects with case studies, workshops and trainings labs and research available for undergraduate stage

Fig. 3. Students’ input gathered on Teaching methods and Learning tools by regions of Europe. We can see that, throughout the years, BEST has been able to involve students from different regions of Europe, ensuring that different opinions were taken into account when studying the relevant educational matters and identifying the innovative teaching associated concepts. The years are referred to the Event on Education that took place then.

The concept of university management was introduced at the end of the ‘90s (Fig. 4.) and was mainly based on figuring out the perfect balance between traditional and modern way of learning. It was stated that “each person’s learning process is unique and affected by numerous factors, many of which are outside the scope of university” [28]. This is how the CLT, Constructive Learning Theory [29], was born and introduced as a teaching methodology. Here, new expansive patterns of thinking were nurtured, fostering teamwork. By that time, this concept was abstract, being based on diversity and the need of involvement of stakeholders other than students and HEIs. The first result of CLT were seen since the beginning of the 21st century, but our research gathered data from 2005 until nowadays. The immediate input that acknowledge the results from 1999 studies, was based on a new approach that continue CLT model, and that was based on Active Learning and industrial concepts adapted to engineering courses [30]. The main concept that changed the perspective of teaching was Project Based Learning [17], or in simple words: “learning by doing”. The method was welcomed by all stakeholders and for the first time companies have had a bigger and crucial role in an undergraduate’s life. The idea was deducted from Active Learning concept and both followed to same issues to be

Fig. 4. Teaching methods and learning process associated concepts used by students throughout the years. In 1999 (UNI MGMT) university management and (CLT) Constructive Learning Theory were the popular concepts associated with innovative learning. In 2005 these were replaced by (PBT) Project Based Theory and e-learning. These were followed by active learning and Advanced (TM) Teaching Methods; Finally, nowadays, (PDP) Personal Development Plan is the most popular concept among students.

By analyzing this results was figured that on the road to evolution, there are still some issues to deal with, like technology in contrast with human approach, or increasing fees.

The future awareness of these matters has to be raised in order to actually develop EEE and make a change.

VI.

CONCLUSION

In the beginning of 21 century, there was a shift in EEE where education is now considered a cooperative process between teachers and students. Now, after almost two decades of European students' opinions we see EEE has been heavily influenced by technology. As the internet came into the lives of students, universities and companies, it lead to an increasing access to information and sharing. This in turn meant a need for engineers to “learn-to-learn”. This lead to an active search for different teaching methods, such as e-learning, which, consequently fostered questions such as the importance of st

social skills and international cooperation in an engineer. In turn, as communication increased, being proactive and being able to present ideas in public became as important as being able to work “under pressure” in a competitive market.

Nowadays, we have technology and internationalization are well within the European society, which allow us to develop the concept of virtual mobility, enhance cooperation between stakeholders, foster innovation and multidisciplinary as well as to bear in mind the concept of lifelong learning [3-5].

Overall, we saw that: curriculum development begs for a constant adaptation to the job market; e-learning has become a reality, making information accessible to a large number of students and beginning the struggle against loss of social contact, which lead to the conclusion that e-learning should be combined with traditional teaching methods to assure the best outcomes [32]; an open-minded and innovative mindset are the key-skills for the modern engineer, not disregarding the technical knowledge balanced with strong social, presentation and communication skills. Interestingly, the sociotechnological influences EEE has suffered along the years, have also been identified in Sunthonkanokpong 2011. In this study it is also stated that the problems engineers will face in 2020, will be, among others, to maintain technical currency and lifelong learning, as well as to manage globalization [33].

Innovative teaching methods have been put to the test and there is now knowledge about which method develops which set of skills. However, there is a need to step forward from the entrepreneurial hubs of innovation, and expand the implementation of innovative methods and tools to every university across Europe. This requires the need to clearly define the required skills of an Engineer in each job market and identify the appropriate teaching and learning methods. With this, one can conclude that modern students should be openminded, innovative and communicative in order to be able to contribute to the global market. Development of EEE will be as successful as the company-university-student involvement.

Companies need to be involved in study programs and help bridge the gap between the knowledge gained in university years and the skills needed in the corporate world.

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