Rationale: Higher education prepares learners for their future role as professionals and active citizens in multiple ways: it builds field specific knowledge; it builds learning-to-learn capacity that empowers students to develop knowledge in life-long learning contexts throughout their careers in a constantly evolving job market; it prepares students to effectively transition from the educational environment into the professional world, to become effectively integrated into the professionally community, and to adapt to market-driven processes. According to the Modernization Agenda for Higher Education, the sector faces multiple challenges in its quest to build critically thinking, creative, and adaptable adults (Vassiliou A.); these include the economic crisis, youth unemployment, integration of new technologies and modes of working, and more. On the other hand, the Communication on Opening-up Education highlights the need to stimulate innovative ways of teaching and learning through new technologies and digital content, to alleviate the “new digital divide” which has led to 50-80% of students never using digital content, and to exploit the opportunities of the digital revolution in educational contexts.In engineering principles, the knowledge students build while enrolled in higher education may become to a large degree irrelevant a few years after graduation as a result of the fast evolution of technology in innovation related sectors. In this context, the capacity to think critically and to learn-to-learn are as important, if not more, as the base knowledge developed through formal curricula. In addition, to facilitate an effective transition to the professional world higher education must expose students to industry practices and processes rather than be limited to the development of core knowledge. This exposure may be achieved to a certain degree through specific courses; more effectively, it may be achieved through the integration of industry processes into curricula thus enabling students to use new skills and competencies in a learning environment that simulates the way industry deploys knowledge.Objectives: LEAP aims at building experience and knowledge among higher education students on emerging lean and agile industry practices empowering them to effectively transition into the professional world, focusing on engineering disciplines. The project further aims at closing the new digital divide by promoting the development of high quality digital content for higher education linked to both academic and industry needs. Lean practices will encourage students to design solutions that meet needs while minimizing the deployment of resources. Agile practices will expose students to industry cycles in which design is integrated throughout production processes, as opposed to only in the early stages of production, ensuring that the final product effectively addresses consumer needs.Methodology: LEAP will pursue these objectives through the design and development of serious games that encourage learners to adopt industry roles, to think critically for addressing community and societal needs through agile engineering solutions, to practice on the application of industrial process management in the context of their higher education curricula, and to take into account environmental responsibility issues in service design and implementation. Recognizing the importance of supporting educators on integrating the proposed innovative learning methods and tools into their teaching practices LEAP will further develop good practice guidelines and instructor support content. The outcomes will be validated in real-life contexts in classrooms in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Estonia, and the UKThe outcomes of the project will be:• A lean and agile learning design framework that encourages students to think critically for building engineering solutions that effectively address user needs while taking into account environmental issues• Proof-of-concept serious games based on scenarios that challenge learners to introduce solutions to real-world issues through engineering innovation• Educators support content for facilitating the integration of proposed methods and tools into existing instructional practices• Good practice recommendations for promoting uptake and adoption of project results based on evaluation findingsImpact: LEAP will promote quality teaching and learning in higher education through the alignment of educational processes to industry needs. It will further promote the implementation of the Communication on Opening Up Education by fostering the development and deployment of digital content for higher education that helps build student capacity in adopting industrial design, by supporting educators in their efforts to continuously update their instructional skills, and by stimulating innovation in learning and teaching through educational frameworks that link education to the professional world.
Higher education prepares learners for their future role as professionals and active citizens in multiple ways: it builds field specific knowledge; it builds learning-to-learn capacity that empowers students to develop knowledge throughout their careers; it prepares students to effectively transition from the educational environment into the professional world, to become effectively integrated into the professionally community, and to adapt to market-driven processes. According to the Modernization Agenda for Higher Education, the sector faces multiple challenges in its quest to build critically thinking, creative, and adaptable adults (Vassiliou A.); these include the economic crisis, youth unemployment, integration of new technologies and modes of working, and more. On the other hand, the Communication on Opening-up Education highlights the need to stimulate innovative ways of teaching and learning through new technologies and digital content, to alleviate the “new digital divide” which has led to 50-80% of students never using digital content, and to exploit the opportunities of the digital revolution in educational contexts. In engineering principles in particular the need for building critical thinking capacity in addition to foundational knowledge is imperative due to the rapid evolution of technology and industry practices. Furthermore, it is necessary to build knowledge in a manner that allows students to transfer it to real world contexts upon graduation. Project LEAP aims at building experience and knowledge among higher education engineering students on emerging lean and agile industry practices empowering them to effectively transition into the professional world. Agile design refers to production and development practices in which the design and implementation process are interleaved and not distinct. It is applied when user requirements are not clear from the start and aims at better addressing end user needs. Lean production refers to practices that eliminate non-essential production activities with the objective of facilitating easier maintenance and ultimately reducing production costs. LEAP aims to demonstrate how agile and lean design is applicable not only in the traditional software engineering and manufacturing sectors but in wider engineering production processes. LEAP builds agile and lean skills among engineering higher education students through an active, experiential learning framework that is delivered in practice through serious games. Three gaming frameworks have been developed. The Technical Debt game demonstrates how investing in sound production practices early on can contribute to contain costs further down in the production process. The 5S game on lean production exposes students to the concept of maintaining clean and sustainable production practices by adoption the principles: sort, set in order, shine, standardize, and sustain. 3 scenarios have been implemented that show the usefulness of the 5S lean design in organizing diverse workspaces such as a pharmacy inventory, an on-line office space, and a scrapyard. The SCRUM agile design game demonstrates the SCRUM process in which user requirements are documented and prioritized before being implemented in “sprints” of work, while this process is iterated until the final product is complete. 2 scenarios have been implemented demonstrating SCRUM application in urban design and agriculture. The LEAP learning games are complemented by instructor support content in the form of learning sheets that describe wide learning activities built around the games in the context of blended learning as well as how-to videos that demonstrate the game functionality. The LEAP methodologies, games, and supporting content were validated through the engagement of higher education students in Greece, Estonia, Portugal, the UK, and Spain. The results demonstrate the positive effect of serious games as means of facilitating active learning and building skills that are transferable to the real world. In terms of impact, LEAP promotes quality teaching and learning in higher through the adoption of emerging pedagogical methodologies based on active and game based learning, and through the development of digital content for higher education that is openly accessible to all, in line with the Communication on Opening Up Education. It further builds instructor skills on integrating emerging practices into classrooms. Finally, it helps link higher education to industry needs, builds highly demanded skills, and promotes sustainable development by focusing on building human capital. Project partners are the University of Thessaly (GR), Tallinn University (EE), Porto Polytechnic (PT), University of Vigo (ES), University of Central Lancashire (UK), and the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (GR). The partners offer collectively expertise in pedagogical design, serious games design, graphical design, learning delivery, and pedagogical evaluation.