The COVID-19 pandemic has completely changed our lives. Suddenly, from one day to another, students, teachers, and parents have to safeguard curricular education activities without the formal school settings. It will definitely have a significant long-term effect on education, including on curriculum and learning. This could become an opportunity to rethink our current education system, the curriculum, our teaching and learning strategies, assessment processes, and the development of students’ key competencies with a focus on strengthening their learning skills and, at the same time keeping them motivated and engaged.
It is undeniable how technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, augmented reality, internet of things, social media, digital learning platforms, drones, and 3D printing have been leveraged during the current health crisis. This unprecedented event is driving us to become more appreciative and reliant in technology and far more creative and inventive than ever before.
The pandemic has affected students’ learning efficacy worldwide on a record scale. Educational systems have responded in different ways. Some of them deliver paper-based assignments to students, while others introduced a mix of synchronous and asynchronous remote learning, homeschooling programs, or TV educational channels. There is no doubt that we need to rely on technology more than ever. Teachers, students, and parents feel overloaded and confused. More than before, the ability to be flexible and creative becomes a key element in education. The stiffness and standardization of traditional education will remain behind. A new era in Education has started.
Educational Systems around the world have been struggling to successfully deliver knowledge and learning content to their students. It’s been a challenge to sustain quality outcomes in the context of remote learning. Distance learning tends to require a high level of self-directed learning on the part of the learner, and study skills, which must be supported through new teaching and learning strategies1. Even though there are many educational resources online, it is quite challenging to find high-quality curriculum content that aligns with our national educational standards that cover all grade levels, all subject areas, and diverse languages.
Our main purpose as a Company is to offer solutions that empower students and give them the capacity of self-management and self-directed learning. We strive to help them be creative, adaptable, and flexible. We enable students to be active players in their learning. In Novum, we want to be part of the change, and we seek to support students and schools to successfully adapt to the new changes. We aim to transform education through solutions that are offered directly to:
- Students: We need to look at students as individuals, not as a part of a system where they need to fit in a cookie-cutter. We need to think of them in their entirety and look out for their well-being. Not everything depends on just schooling. We need to bring them opportunities outside of school. In Novum, we bring out-of-school enrichment opportunities in which students develop skills and competencies that will prepare them to face whatever challenges they might face in the future. Our courses provide unique learning experiences in areas of Educational Robotics, Augmented Reality, Internet of Things, Electronics, 3D Design, and Printing, among others.
- Schools: There has always been a barrier, resistance, and never-ending discussions to integrate technology in classrooms. We come from a world that prioritized specialization and standardization. Educational technology companies struggle to ground and apply their solutions from a pedagogical perspective. We seek to be the bridge that provides support to schools as we collectively face the Education 4.0 era. We offer affordable and proven solutions in which classroom design, technologies, and curriculum merge to provide an ideal learning and collaborative environment for educational institutions. Some of our solutions are:
- Curriculum Content available in English and Spanish; self-managed and self-paced; aligned with the Education 4.0 frameworks and national Standards of Science, Technology, and Math.
- Flexible LMS Platform that supports distance learning, blended learning, flipped classroom, or traditional on-campus learning. We offer add-on STEM curriculum content that is adaptable to any educational model and teaching methodology.
- MiniLabs4.0
- A MiniLab is integrated by several kits of various 4.0 technologies enabling students to develop common projects combining those technologies.
- Each technology kit can be used independently, or students can carry out projects where all the technologies are combined.
- With our MiniLabs students develop real-life projects in which multidisciplinary knowledge and transversal competencies are connected and interrelated.
- Some of our MiniLabs are focused on domotics, Maker, smart factories, and autonomous vehicles. Our MiniLabs are equipped with complete self-managed and self-paced learning sequences and projects. Teachers act as facilitators and mentors, rather than just knowledge-givers.
We are sure that those who successfully and quickly adapt to the imminent Industry 4.0 Revolution won’t just thrive; they will shape it. At Novum Education, we want to be part of that!
References: 1. 2020. Distance learning strategies in response to COVID-19 school closures. Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000373305?posInSet=2&;queryId=N-8ea77989-29de-4ff3-997c-eaddc678be5b