The core components of education 4.0 in higher education: Three case studies in engineering education

TLDR

Technological progress and its rapid evolution have positively affected the industrial sector and various productive and service sectors, with education being one of the service sectors that has benefited the most. The paper aims to describe and map Education 4.0 in higher education according to the four industrial revolutions and to propose four core components—competencies, learning methods, ICT, and infrastructure—as a reference for educational innovation. The authors map Education 4.0 to the industrial revolution periods and outline the four core components to guide the design of new educational projects. Three case studies in engineering education demonstrate how the proposed components are incorporated into program designs.

Abstract

Technological progress and its rapid evolution have positively affected the industrial sector and different productive/service sectors. One of the service-sectors that have benefited the most has been Education. In this sector, the implementation of current and emerging technologies combined with innovative pedagogical procedures and best practices is known as Education 4.0, which, in this paper, is described and mapped according to the well-known periods of the four industrial revolutions and related to higher education. Likewise, four core components of Education 4.0 to be used as a reference for the design of new projects in educational innovation are proposed (i) Competencies, (ii) Learning Methods, (iii) Information and Communication Technologies, and (iv) Infrastructure. Finally, three case studies applied to Engineering Education illustrate how the proposed components are considered in educational programs' designs.