Abstract
Innovative pedagogical methodologies are becoming increasingly applicable in the context of higher education. In this cocreation project, multidisciplinary teams of students, companies/organizations' representatives, and teachers focus on finding solutions to real problems. The project also involves the training of teachers to play the role of facilitator, stimulating and conducting a concrete project of collaborative creation of innovation. This chapter aims to present the impact of the second edition of this project from the facilitators' perspective that took place in a higher education institution in Portugal, the Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, from September 2021 to February 2022. Main results reveal the possibility of increasing students' proactivity, highlighting the perception of increased capacity building in communication and collaboration; increased relationship between the academy and the embedded context, stimulating partnerships with stakeholders in the region; and boosting international work, favoring internationalization processes at home, even in a pandemic context.
TopIntroduction
This chapter is dedicated to the evaluation of the 2nd edition of the Pedagogical Innovation Project, based on a Cocreation Methodology, developed in the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal (IPS), as a pedagogical training project for teachers in the learning process in higher education. It is, therefore, a chapter of an imminently pedagogical nature, insofar, as it aims to reflect on the balance of the main learning experiences of pedagogical innovation by IPS teachers and other education and training agents using this specific Cocreation methodology of Finnish origin. Innovative pedagogical methodologies are becoming increasingly applicable in the context of Higher Education, and this Methodology uses cocreation processes and design thinking among multidisciplinary teams of students, employees of companies/organizations and teachers who are the trainees of the process of cocreation of innovation, focused on finding solutions to meet the current and future challenges of organizations.
The project involves the training of teachers from Polytechnic and Professional Schools to play the role of facilitator, stimulating and conducting a concrete project of collaborative creation of innovation. In this way, facilitators promote the development of cocreation processes by multidisciplinary teams, encouraging the construction of new knowledge based on the search for new solutions in innovative environments. The objective of this project is to allow and encourage the creation of a community of facilitators who will work as disseminators of cocreation practices, allowing them to become part of the pedagogical dynamics implemented in the different courses taught at IPS (Carvalho et al., 2021).
The development of this project is intended to ensure the training of teachers from different scientific areas to monitor projects developed by teams of students with stakeholders in the region.
This chapter is organized with the following structure:
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Literature review on the main theoretical concepts, namely, the definition of cocreation, cocreation in higher education and the importance of teacher training in active methodologies;
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Objectives and the Cocreation methodology, as well as the project at IPS that used that methodology, in particular the description of its second edition;
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Main results and reflections about the facilitator’s perspective of the Cocreation Project at IPS;
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Key conclusions of the study divided into four dimensions: tools, software, and other supports for teaching-learning; teaching-learning methodologies; added value for students; strengthening of relations with the surrounding community.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Pedagogical Teacher Training: The Cocreation Project is a pedagogical training project for teachers in the learning process in higher education, where teachers are trained to play the role of facilitator, stimulating, and conducting concrete projects based on cocreation of innovation, working with multidisciplinary teams of students, organizations, and experts.
Cocreation Methodology: This methodology uses cocreation processes and design thinking among multidisciplinary teams of students, employees of companies/organizations and teachers who are trained to play the role of facilitator, stimulating and conducting a concrete project of collaborative creation of innovation, focused on finding solutions to meet the current and future challenges of organizations.
Design Thinking: Design thinking applied to Higher Education are teaching-learning processes, methodologies, practices, and attitudes that involves a structured process of a collaborative teamwork based on practice-based learning, with the main goal of finding practical solutions to real problems and challenges. That involves a high degree of creativity and thinking out-of-the-box to take innovative ideas and bring them to real world, out of academic walls. The Cocreation Project uses cocreation processes and design thinking to find innovative solutions to real world problems and challenges.
Cocreation: Cocreation methodology emerges as an alternative to more traditional solutions, that focus on science-based projects, and consist on the collaborative process of creating value together by companies, consumers, external experts and other stakeholders, like individuals, organizations and academia members. Cocreation processes bring companies closer to academia, within a collaborative creation of knowledge and innovative solutions to real economic and social problems and challenges.
Facilitators: On the Cocreation Project facilitators are teachers who are trained to be enabled to stimulate and conduct a concrete project of collaborative creation of innovation. Facilitators promote the development of cocreation processes by multidisciplinary teams of students, organizations, and experts, encouraging the construction of new knowledge based on the search for new solutions in innovative environments.
Pedagogical Innovation: Pedagogical Innovation in Higher Education are innovative approaches of teaching and learning that increase student enrolment and engagement. Bringing students to the center of the teaching-learning process, the Cocreation Project presents a new learning experience, where students are invited to participate in multidisciplinary teams together with teachers, organizations members, and experts, searching new and innovative findings and knowledge to solve real problems.
Cocreation Project: The cocreation project at focus in this chapter consists of an innovation platform and a university-company collaboration model for the creation of new products and services. It is a cocreation of innovation project with multidisciplinary teams of university students, supervised by teachers (facilitators), who work together with employees of a private, public or third sector organization to find solutions to solve real problems.
Active Learning: Active learning methodologies in higher education are teaching-learning approaches that require students to actively participate in their learning process, and that includes students’ efforts to actively create their own knowledge. On the Cocreation Project at focus in this chapter students participate in multidisciplinary teams together with teachers, organizations members and experts, on a problem-based learning process that search new and innovative solutions to real problems and challenges.