Innovation: A new goal of education
For centuries since the founding of the University of Santo Tomas in 1611, the main goal of Philippine education has been to teach students and turn out graduates who are critical, who can verify and check new ideas, who can be employed and productive.
Now that we have the Internet and easy international travel, colleges and universities should expand their goal to producing graduates with high-value skills like collaboration, networking, research and innovation, and who can do outcome studies so they can compete globally.
With this new goal in mind, educators, administrators, policymakers, and the media should move away from the practice of glorifying the top 10 passers of board exams. Instead, students should be required to create, improve, or innovate on a service, program, or object that will help a child, a family, or an organization. And those who can create or invent awesome products or services should replace the top 10 passers of their respective board exams.
All first year college students should be told that before they can graduate, they are required to come up with something that is new or an improved version of an existing gadget, machine, or service. Their first two years of college will be on the basic knowledge of their chosen profession. And the last two years should focus on research or work with an organization of their choice that will make them acquire skills or a mental attitude that can help them succeed in their dream career.
However, the delivery of the contents of what students need to learn will not be through traditional lectures in a classroom, which is what most of our universities are still doing. Future innovative students will have to enroll at a college like Olin in Needham, Massachusetts, in the United States.
Five years ago, my wife and I visited Olin College because of an article that I had read in Time magazine. I was intrigued by how a project-based educational program was actually performing.
The college was founded in 2002 through a $460-million grant from the F.W. Olin Foundation, with a mandate to revamp engineering education which, according to critics, had become more academic and less practical in the past decades.
How is Olin different from traditional colleges? In the words of Katerina Blazek, a member of the inaugural graduating class: “Instead of spending two years learning the theory, you start using it in projects right away.” I heard similar comments from the students that I interviewed during our visit.
Olin has only about 300 students, and all of them are on a full-tuition scholarship. One student said that she knew the first names of most of her fellow students, and that the environment was safe. (A student who “lost” a laptop somewhere on campus returned a day later to the same area—and found it.) Even in the middle of the night, professors answer questions by e-mail.
Another place where innovation is the goal of each student is Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Robotic Institute in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, also in the United States. Undergraduates taking the course Introduction to Robotics have a weekly homework: They have to build a Lego robot that demonstrates the week’s concept. “If the robot works, they get their A,” says Howie Choset, the teacher of the course.
The highlight of the year at CMU Robotics is the Robo Cup competition which pits teams of Sony AIBO robot dogs against each other in soccer. This competition is becoming more popular than the real football college team.
It’s time the “top 10 board passers” mentality was changed to the “top 10 student innovators.”
The first step is for all presidents of colleges and universities and national associations of educators to meet and agree to make innovation the new priority on top of other traditional goals. Then they should study and apply the methods, programs and curricula of colleges and universities in the United States like Olin, CMU Robotics, University of California at Irvine, Florida State University, etc.
The media should also be part of the move to change educational goals by abandoning the practice of glorifying the Top 10 board passers. Instead, they should report on the “Top 10 Groups of Students with Innovative Projects of the Year.” The students’ inventions or products should be featured on the front pages of newspapers and in television programs and newscasts.
With today’s Internet, iPads, and tablets, our colleges and universities can transform themselves into highly innovative institutions that can compete globally and produce more inventors like Aisa Mijeno, the young Filipino woman who made table salt a low-cost lamplight.
Dr. Leonardo L. Leonidas (nonieleonidas68@ gmail.com) retired in 2008 as assistant clinical professor in pediatrics from Boston’s Tufts University School of Medicine, where he was recognized with a Distinguished Career in Teaching Award in 2009. A 1968 graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, he now spends some of his time in the province of Aklan.
