Maker spaces, active learning labs, and similar multidisciplinary collaborative learning spaces have become essential elements for STEM Engineering education worldwide, as academic institutions respond to the demands of 21st-century workplaces. In contrast, Engineering education in India still remains mired in a moribund, overly theoretical curriculum disconnected from ground realities. While the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is a welcome change, a lot more needs to be done to reimagine and reform Engineering education in India.
Knowledge, today, is no longer stacked up in silos, and any new skillsets learnt will probably last only a decade or even less. Students today desire to connect their educational experience with real-world applications so that there is a more direct connection to their careers. Experiential learning or learning-by-doing at makerspaces provides students with that connection.
Makerspaces are the next generation of learning facilities, with open, flat-floor collaborative classrooms and experiential labs equipped with modern fabrication tools, desktop manufacturing equipment, and moveable tables and furniture, designed for multidisciplinary teams. The teachers’ role is more as an enabler while the students design, assemble, manufacture, and test different elements of the projects and courses they are working on. Incorporating a culture of learning-by-doing through makerspaces in higher education institutions will help Engineering students gain strongcore technical skills and develop problem-solving abilities, a creative and inventive mindset, and essential cognitive soft skills that help them negotiate the 21st-century workplace.
Benefits of makerspaces and experiential learning
Enhanced employability skills: The hands-on experience of taking things apart, rebuilding them and making things and seeing their ideas take a physical shape makes students more innovative and also helps to increase industry-academia collaborations. Making is all about thinking in a different way. Innovation is an integral part of this process and leads to an interdisciplinary collaboration, which emphasises teamwork, entrepreneurship and commercial viability.
Knowledge application: Working at makerspaces deepens the knowledge of STEM concepts learnt in the classroom. The application in real-world situations helps students understand how to use abstract theoretical knowledge taught through traditional setting of classroom lectures, textbooks or videos and create solutions for current problems.
Develops cognitive skills: Making, tinkering, and any form of hands-on learning encourages working across disciplines, which requires both teamwork and inter-generational leadership. This encourages community building. Not only do students develop confidence in themselves but also learn to work with others, and develop communication skills, decision making, time management skills among others.
Learn from failure: Learning by doing is a process of trial-and-error and experimentation. By getting their hands dirty, testing, evaluating, and modifying, students learn how to turn failure into a learning experience and persevere in challenging situations. They transition from being risk averse to being active risk-takers who have the potential to be change agents.
Thus, remaking Engineering education to include a more experiential, active learning approach can transform our demographic potential into a true demographic dividend by providing students with a bigger toolkit of skills and setting them up for success in their careers and life.
The writer is CEO, Maker Bhavan Foundation.
