Digital and Collaborative Work

Do digital and collaborative work go hand in hand? This chapter combines the practical experience of two university teachers and literature to answer this question. Basic notions are revisited: Collaborative work, Distance learning, Social constructivism, Authentic learning to establish the winning conditions. Collaborative work implies three types of action, i.e. communicating, coordinating, and producing. Digital technology finds its place in each of these, given the great diversity of tools available. To promote collaborative work with digital, the authors propose to clarify teaching objectives, to vary digital and pedagogical tools, and to develop the evaluation of collaborative work. The practical experience helps to clarify the main constraints of remote collaborative work and to identify some key elements to be aware of. Several concrete examples illustrate the problems and possible solutions.

From Reflective Practice to Critical Thinking

This chapter explores the role of reflection and the development of reflexivity in programs of professional studies in higher education. Serving as empirical basis is a qualitative explorative longitudinal study with students in different master's programs at a University for Professional Studies, considering the students' perspective and their changing understanding and practice of reflection both at the workplace and in their studies. The students' perspective is complemented by an analysis of interviews with teachers in professional master's programs about their teaching strategies supporting students' learning. Linking these two perspectives leads to a developmental model of reflection over the course of studies that allows new ways of interpreting the reflective practitioner in higher education.

The Importance of Personal Effectiveness Training in University Master Courses

For the team manager function, building the required posture of assertiveness and self-construction requires identity conversions that cannot be achieved without reflexivity, nor philosophical spirituality. Self-reflection allows the construction of one's own trajectory, and the possibility of a positive encounter between one's own dynamics and that of others. This new professional posture questions the role of initial training through all the aspects that must guarantee the success of student socio-professional integration and give the opportunity of implementing the expected skills on a job start. This chapter describes the possible modalities of personal efficiency learning at university by describing the construction of a pedagogical course mixing competency approach and program approach within a work-integrated learning.

Key Processes for the Performance of Work-Integrated Learning in HE

In a changing business market due to state regulation, funding reductions, and generation evolution, HE providers target a high level of operational learning performance. Work Integrated Learning is a framework that complies with European Standards and Guidelines, leading to increased competences of the citizen all through life and career. But the consistency of the training offer with shareholders' projects is only ensured if a learning organization rigorously monitors the 5-step road map: an improvement cycle that nonetheless allows local adaptation when carrying out the training in the scope of Quality Assurance. Today, more than ever, the issue for excellence (sustainability, efficiency, welfare at work) requires the Pole of Expertise animation, which means training tutors (TIL). The winning-foursome is the new lever for innovation. The tremendous digital integration at all levels of the organization opens new dimensions to executive dashboards to support the change of paradigm between trainees and trainers, then questions training lifetime and leading model for transfer.

Fancy or Efficiency?

With the democratization of informatics technologies, there is a new demand for more advanced Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) and also fancy training devices that integrate technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR). The fact that these solutions are now affordable makes the learning managers dream about having realistic simulations for training. When delivered, sometimes customers are not satisfied because the software is often complex, not user-friendly enough, or not compatible with the computer fleet of the company. Consequently, professionals show a preference for the old training solution. In this chapter, the crash case of a French university commissioning a simulator on VR for training operators on the production of anti-cancer drugs will be presented. The authors will highlight the reasons that made this training not adapted to the field in which the training takes place, then, explain which guidelines an effective instructional designer should take into consideration while developing the training solution.

Educational Serious Games Enhance Social Intelligence Through Collective Action

Pedagogical serious games sound like up-to-date pedagogical devices for learning efficiency. But the challenge of higher performance in HE lies in tailored pedagogical devices and their usage for the learning goal; a choice to consider according to the training specifications (learning outcome), the learners' needs, and the trainer's expertise (tailored approach). The guidance by the trainer is a value-added, but a risk-taking activity changing the paradigm with the trainee. Digital integration into serious games is a 4-dimension transition: 1) group characterization facilitation for social intelligence, 2) subliminal learning in a virtual environment for commitment, 3) trainer dashboard based on individual e-preparation for feedback priorization, and 4) automation of events for gameplay and increasing skills. The splitting of space and time constraints is a new opportunity that challenges the trainer's role, changing the usual balance during face-to-face training. The proposed standard for hybrid PSG design should overcome the gaps and guarantee a real benefit from digital technology.

How Colleges and Universities Create the Value of Their Degrees

This chapter explores how colleges and universities have struggled to define who they are and what they are responsible for doing. From the understanding that society has increasingly equated educated with employed and highly compensated, the discussion highlights the formal and informal education students receive, as well as the external stakeholders who attempt to regulate this learning. Authors extend the idea of a formal curriculum to the ‘hidden curriculum,' that is, the unintended learning and experiences students encounter on campus. The hidden curriculum can play an important role in the student development process, and in many cases, has become the de facto value-added experience that an institution can offer. College policy makers and leaders can use the idea of a hidden curriculum to their advantage in working with students, but must first take the step of creating expectations of student learning and aligning their activities with learning outcomes.

Integrative Learning Toward Social Responsibility in Teaching Engineering

The Technical University of Madrid, within the Spanish context, has profited from the introduction of a System of Internal Quality Assurance to build a road on the grounds of previous work on the culture of ethics in engineering. This way may drive the students training to incorporate in their curricula, leadership instruments that can be used for the recognition and acquisition of social responsibility. The road is paved with various educational elements, either mandatory, such as the “Mentoring Project” (peer support program), or optional, such as “Monitoring” (peer academic support program), “Ethics and Values in Engineering” (with social entrepreneurship projects) and “Service-Learning” (methodology that combines learning objectives with community service). This strategy, combined with the convergence of the European Higher Education Area, allows selecting those students who are able to integrate in their professional assets the idea and commitment of making the human development more sustainable, since the named experiences work towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Learning Analytics

This chapter discusses the impact of the use of Learning Analytics on the professional development of teachers in higher education. Learning Analytics allows teachers to obtain previously inaccessible information about their students' learning activities. Based on this information, it is possible for teachers to modify their teaching strategies and the learning environment they offer to students, and they can also offer better monitoring to them. After having shed a theoretical light on the concepts used in this chapter, authors propose a case analysis relating to the experience of a teacher from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Liège. Using a professional development model, authors then propose an analysis of the impact of Learning Analytics on the professional development of this teacher. In this case, the Learning Analytics appear as a lever for the professional development of the teacher.

Creating a Framework for Future Learning

This chapter proposes the use of a two-pronged framework to reinforce, support, and extend learning far beyond the classroom. This approach uses a community of practice (CoP) in conjunction with an online resource tool called an Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS). The CoP begins in the classroom, whether physical or online, during higher education or training and is intended to continue throughout the person's working career. The EPSS, an online data storehouse of sorts, also provides ongoing benefits, since its content can be continually updated and expanded. The EPSS can be accessible on desktop or mobile devices and could potentially allow for user-generated content.