Ana Rodera, international lecturer for the Master’s Degree in Technology and Educational Innovation (MATIE) at the National University of Costa Rica (UNA) and external pedagogical consultant for the EDvolution project

How can we successfully land educational innovation in postgraduate studies? How does the evidence of learning from a master’s degree course influence how real educational challenges are solved?

In the Master’s Degree in Technology and Educational Innovation (MATIE) at the National University of Costa Rica (UNA), we have observed, analysed and customized innovation, considering both the demands and expectations of Costa Rican society with regard to educational processes and the skills that 21^st-century education professionals need to have. This positioning led us to integrate innovation at different times and with different degrees of intensity, formats and resources throughout the MATIE and directly affected the redesign of the Final Graduation Project (FGP) subject.

Amongst the triggers for the new conception and design of the FGP, five in particular stand out:

1. The impossibility of applying a flexible method that made it possible to carry out an educational innovation project mediated by information and communication technology (ICT) and to assess its impact on the generation of meaningful learning and on the teaching and assessment processes.

2. The lack of a competency-based educational approach.

3. The uncritical, ineffective and limited use of ICTs in students’ educational proposals.

4. The low level of satisfaction with the learning experience reported by students in previous editions.

5. The need to consolidate various skills (both soft and hard) amongst students, offering comprehensive training that will allow them to develop and thrive in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VICA) environments.

The rethinking of the FGP led us to devise and implement a subject that allows students to experience the progressive acquisition of skills related to the technical mastery of various ICTs first-hand and in each of their subjects, thereby facilitating their critical integration into the methodologies and active assessment strategies used in the classroom. It further allows them to pursue the constant evolution of their proposed project based on the consolidation of critical thinking skills and the development of metacognition over the twelve weeks of the course; to increase the real possibilities of quickly transferring MATIE knowledge to the educational contexts of the professionals participating in the course; to turn mistakes, inquiry and the courage to try new things into drivers of learning; to share processes, stages, activities and any information about how the ICT-mediated educational innovation project was put into practice, without glossing over areas of improvement or any challenging or unsuccessful situations that might have arisen, in order to inspire other professionals; and to merge theory and practice in a realistic project with an impact in the short term on the educational community in which it was being carried out.

Some of the most significant new developments and changes in the current FGP include:

1. Project proposals that address a need or problem or seek to bring to fruition an idea arising from a real educational context.

2. Establishment of a maximum ratio of 15 students per teacher.

3. Division of the FGP into four deliverables with different formats: final report or research article, documentary video, presentation and e-portfolio.

4. Close, continuous, personalized support from the subject lecturer (four online meetings and communication via e-mail or in forums throughout the term).

5. Use of FGP guideline tools from the initial steps (preliminary ideas, draft proposal, literature review, etc.) to the verification of the various stages included in each of the four deliverables (element validation checklists, deliverable assessment rubrics, etc.).

6. List of current and concise resources for optimal devising and development of the deliverables grouped under a collaborative social bookmark.

7. Cross-disciplinary work on digital literacy across all subjects for the master’s (generation of virtual learning environments, design of timelines for project-based work, use of project-management tools, design of infographics to present results, use of interactive images and videos to present topics, etc.), demonstrating how it can potentially be used in teaching-learning and assessment situations.

8. Weighting of the final mark for the FGP based on two factors: the mark awarded by the subject teacher (50%) and the mark awarded by the FGP assessment committee (50%).

We were able to integrate all these changes thanks to the support, involvement and collaboration of the MATIE coordinator with the teaching staff and by expediting bureaucratic processes, giving the various subjects a ‘permanent beta’ status, seeking out quality learning experiences and critically reflecting on the feedback from students of previous editions.

The decision to divide the FGP into four deliverables has enabled students to demonstrate various skills associated with both the technical mastery of certain technologies and the acquisition of the skills people need to have on the cusp of the 2020s, skills that had remained hidden when only a single text-based deliverable was used. Additionally, sharing their project, findings, mistakes, lessons learnt, challenges, etc., with the rest of the educational community allows them to serve as an inspiration for their teaching colleagues.

Before devoting themselves in earnest to the various FGP deliverables, students create their own work timeline using project management ICTs such as Trello, Google Tasks or Remember the Milk.

The final report takes the form of a research article following the publication guidelines of the electronic journal Educare. We chose this format to allow students to follow a formal research process for their projects, from the initial design to the reporting of their conclusions. 

The ICTs used for the deliverables include reference managers (Zotero, Mendeley), social bookmarks (Wakelet, Diigo), figure generators (Online Charts, Canva), collaborative text editors (Google Docs), and tools for posting and gathering ideas (Padlet, Coggle).

The documentary video allows FGP students to produce audiovisual material including moments and interventions by participants in their ICT-mediated educational innovation proposal. The deliverable requires them to do intensive work on the skills of creativity, management and coordination. Technology services and mobile apps for recording and editing videos, such as FlexClip or InShot, are used for the video’s production and post-production.

The presentation of the educational innovation project to the assessment committee lasts 15 minutes. Students are given examples of flexible presentation formats, such as PechaKucha, Ignite or Elevator Pitch, to get ideas and prepare. They are also given resources related to oral expression or organizing and presenting data, which are organized in a collaborative social bookmark. The ICTs used to prepare this deliverable include: presentation templates (SlidesCarnival), a playlist of videos on designing effective presentations, social bookmarks, free image and icon repositories (Pixabay, Freepick), and collaborative presentation editing technologies (Google Slides).

The e-portfolio includes the aforementioned three deliverables, as well as all the evidence of learning in various formats (text, audio, video or image) that each student deems relevant with a view to narrowing the gap as much as possible between their potential target audience and the different actions they have carried out over the course of their project. Students use technologies such as Pathbrite, Google Sites, Blogger, Wordpress, Medium and Evernote, amongst others, to prepare their e-portfolios. All are intuitive and free and make it easy to insert information in a variety of formats.

Of the lessons learnt in the MATIE innovation process, the following stand out: design master’s degrees, bachelor’s degrees and courses with the aim of making students educational change agents, equipping them with the attitudes and aptitudes they need to create, apply and transfer knowledge and be able to innovate in challenging educational contexts; foster positive synergies and create engaging collaborative projects between digital society, industry and academia; hone university students’ digital skills, unobtrusively, consistently and gradually integrating across all their subjects technologies that, first, support the construction of meaningful learning and, second, help teachers design and apply methodologies and active assessment strategies; and, finally, make the development of deliverables or evidence of learning a gratifying, motivating, personalized and useful experience linked to both students’ personal and professional growth.

As teachers in the 21^st century, we need to be transformative, no matter what. We must implant the chip of the kind of meaningful risk-taking deemed acceptable in our educational contexts in order to endow current education with attributes, to make it an essential tool in the processes of inquiry, problem-solving and lifelong learning for the people of the digital society.

We have spent too much time talking about innovation. Maybe the time has come to actually begin to innovate at universities. Don’t you think?