The Future of Education

A case study of collaboration between industry and academia to form a new generation innovation hub: lessons learned developing an innovation hub to elevate the quality of education and productivity improvement using a new learning environment (both in terms of physical layout and teaching and learning methodologies used). Maximizing job-readiness of graduates was the main aim of the hub, as there has been a growing divergence between industry needs and education delivered. This is in large part because of rapid technology change that is typically faster adopted in workplaces than it is in higher education facilities. Academia is struggling more than ever to keep up with industry pace and trends. This paper explores many variables that affect learning: physical environments, pedagogical methods using industry involvement in the curriculum and projects, and the integration of current technologies into the programs.  An often neglected portion of learning is the physical environment in which lessons are delivered. Temperature, physical comfort, and many more factors can increase student performance. By optimizing those factors, overall student success is instantly increased without any change of effort from the students. The pedagogical method studied involved true work participation from the students, where industry partners would ask the students to solve real company problems. The fact that companies had to be willing to pay for these solutions was a way to test that the skills being taught were ‘market-tested’. Holding academia to account in this way ensures that education offered does not stray too far from practical requirements. Systematic integration of technology is crucial to support wide ranges of activities, especially in the innovation hub. The industry partners have technology systems that must be used and adhered to, so again the academics have to keep pace in order to be able to provide relevant support. With all of the lessons learned from these real-world experiments, a prototype for an innovation hub is presented that will keep graduates in-line with the industries they will join upon graduation.

Keywords: Innovation hub, teaching, learning, technology, design.