Tallinn 2 - the importance of Learning Environments!

9 de abr. de 2015
3 min de leitura

EDUCON - Global Engineering Education Conference - Tallin - Estonia

Hello everybody,

Continuing the experience of EDUCON - 2015, I would present some interesting reflections related to the conference. EDUCON - 2015 was IN Tallinn University of Technology (TUT - http://www.tut.ee). TUT is the is the only technical university in Estonia and was established in 1918. It is a modern and international university with a multicultural student body. There are students from over 60 countries. The IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference, in 2015, was the sixth of the series of conferences that rotates among central locations in IEEE Region 8, Europe, Middle East and North Africa. It was a surprise for us, because there was a very rich opportunity to learn about international practices and to develop our networking.

EDUCON - http://www.educon-conference.org/educon2015/

We have started, in first day, with a seminar related to education methods, like student centered approaches, constructivism, types of students’ learning styles and project based approaches. Tiia Ruutmann has presented us a initial lecture about curricula structure needs and the importance of developing strategies to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) teaching. It was possible to understand the importance to define a good curricula, to link companies to university and students and to use active methods of teaching and learning. The interaction between students in active approaches and in courses that are related to their professional life can motivate and attract them, as well as keep them studying and developing their careers.

Eucation of Technical Teachers in Estonia.

Fundamental tasks of Teaching.

At the conference, we could had contact with teachers and researchers from 43 different countries talking and discussing new methods for education. In addition to European countries, the conference also received guests from USA, Canada, Brazil, Ecuador, Japan, China, India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Singapore, Philippines, Nigeria, New Zealand, Malaysia, Panama, Cuba, Israel, Ukraine, Russia, and other countries. The experience was great and we could get in touch with many experiences attending presentations of full papers and workshops.

One important learning environment we have visited is called Mektory, a place we have visited (pictures below). Mektory is a link between university and companies and an opportunity to students that want to develop their own business initiatives. We could visit labs from different areas: 3D printers, mechanical, furniture production made of wood, physics, e-learning and Arduino robots. I could even experience a research with Eye Tracker, a technology that capture the eye position to analyse data related to many areas like advertising and psychology for instance. Using this kind of technology is possible to analyse if one product or ad is attractive to customers or not. They also have some labs sponsored by companies like Samsung, Ericsson and others. It is a good example of integrating University and companies.

Mektory - at Tallinn University of Technology.

Mektory - Samsung Academy

Other interesting experience related to learning environments was named Future Classroom Lab, that is one initiative of HITSA (partner of EDUCON). In this classroom, future technologies, mainly ICT (information and communication technology) were integrated to offer an environment that could help people learn throu technologu. Not only computers, but a high-tech learning environment, with video cameras, tables, integrated sound system, smart boards and all facilities that one learning environment could offer to students.

HITSA - Future Classroom

HITSA - Future Classroom

HITSA - Future Classroom

HITSA - Future Classroom

HITSA - Future Classroom

Two other goals I have achieved, besides this important learning time at Tallin. First one was to attend some presentations regarding my project in Brazil and my Doctoral Thesis: using student centered approaches to teach, like constructivism based approaches, Problem Based Learning and Project Based Learning. Second one was attending a workshop with the editor of IEEE Transactions on Education, that gave us many directions related to writing and publishing papers in that journal.