Teaching Engagement Scale Alignment Towards Purpose-Driven Delivery

Introduction

Increasingly, millennial learners of today are entering higher learning institutions with multiple expectations. A common ground for transforming and altering what they want to identify as their presence globally is the key driver for ensuring that education sustainable. As such, the role of the university is to essentially support the students’ needs and help them provide a broad-based and flexible way of learning with personalized options for learning to take place.

In a highly competitive and challenging 21^st century workplace, graduates who are skilled will be relevant, responsive, and work-ready to start and stay ahead in the global marketplace. Figure 1 shows the futuristic common educational framework that map various stakeholders, developed by the Engineering Education laboratories, including various assessments at differing levels in order to make the loop dynamic. It starts with the key purpose of quality education, which is to make of sustainable future ready graduates, primary under the UN Sustainable Goals (SDG) in making the graduate globally employable. This is embedded into the four pillars of the futuristic engineering verticals including curriculum (design their own), pedagogy (learning on the go), sustainability (relevant to industry) and internationalization (global citizen).

Figure 1.

Four pillars of modern engineering education

Industries that usually focus on domestic markets are now increasingly engaged in multinational and multidisciplinary projects brought about by the globalization of world economies. To be globally competitive, engineers should have the knowledge, able to work productively with radically different cultures, possess strong critical thinking skills, exhibit practical ingenuity; possess creativity, business and management skills, and leadership abilities. Engineers are expected to provide viable solutions to the complex engineering challenges of the 21^st century. To provide the needed graduate attributes, the higher learning institutions (HLI) shifted its focus from the traditional input and teacher centered education into student-centered and outcome-based education (OBE). Under OBE, the focus is on “what is essential for students to know and be able to do” at the end of the learning process. In particular, the Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB) 2015-2025 for higher education outlined 10 major reforms in the higher education system to enable

Background

This new education system aims to promote holistic, entrepreneurial and balanced graduates, develop talents through specialized curriculum pathways, maximize individual potential through reskilling and upskilling opportunities, develop deeper industry-academe linkage, maximize resources and stakeholders participation, more cohesive research collaboration, partnership, publications and patents, promote values-driven and globally relevant education, globalized online learning, and encourage HLI to embark on tailored education transformation journey to steer growth. In line with the MEB, HLIs should respond to the major global developments in the current societal transformation activities which include changing employment structures, competency based education, personalized adaptive learning, and curricular optimization with flexible career options, and standardization. Accordingly, the Society for College and University Planning (2016) in its Fall 2016 issue stated that a study by Barnes & Noble College finds that 51% of Gen Z students - those born between 1995 and 2010, who are now entering college like to learn by doing, 38% say they are visual learners, and 12% say they learn best through listening. They want personalized career options, engaging and interactive learning experiences, value the use of technology, hands-on learning, and individual attention. This transformational situation impacts need to serve the macroeconomic objectives of HLIs for the “value for money” and “investment returns” in a “customer service” model of higher education. As a result, HLIs now must pursue alternative plans aggressively to provide flexible and personalized career options by making the academic programs catered to employability.