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Everything is connected : exploring pathways towards environmental awareness within Universidad Panamericana’s community through a learning by design, active and multidisciplinary experience

2018 , Mendieta Jiménez, Bertha Alicia , Repellin Moreno, Adriana Agnes , Chávez Tellerias, Rocio

This work describes the design process to develop an innovative learning methodology for the socialization of sustainability issues with the aim of sharing good practices and making them replicable in various educational contexts at different levels. Socializing an encyclical letter through an active, interactive, and innovative experience that encouraged the commitment of the campus community towards ecological conversion, was the objective with which we designed the “Everything is Connected” Workshop. We explain how Universidad Panamericana acquired the task of socializing the contents of the Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ as a member of the Inter-American Chair Laudato Si’. Then we discuss how the key contents can be translated into pedagogical design principles for workshop planning, as well as the elements of the Learning by Design and Visible Thinking pedagogical theories that were applied to the workshop strategy and materials design. Finally we present the results of the participants experience in the Workshop. ©2018 Iated Academy S.L.

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Organizing your life like a boss : an online experience for the enhancement of effective time management strategies

2018 , Repellin Moreno, Adriana Agnes , Armesto Camargo, Georgina

Nowadays, the scarcest resource is not money as traditional economic analysis suggests, but time. Among the main diseases of our society are those related to stress and anxiety, especially in young people. The emotional, affective, and social consequences of the lack of time to attend all areas of interest appear constantly in the media. People are increasingly required to do more and more activities hence, feeling overwhelmed as they cannot face them all (Villa & Poblete, 2007). During the launch of the Success Center, a campaign was organized on campus to identify the main needs perceived by the students of Universidad Panamericana. These results helped us develop services of interest for them. 909 students participated in the campaign; the main detected need was time management, requested by 28.4% of the students. On the other hand, the University advisers also detected time management as one of the most desired skills among students. Therefore, Organizing your life like a boss was created. In order to design this experience, the context of university students was analyzed: young people are facing changes in the way they obtain information; their reality is closely linked to digital networks, which is reflected in their globalized tastes and preferences, easier access to data, superior domain of information technology (IT), use of English as a common language, choice of audiovisual stimuli over written ones and real-time long-distance interactions (Rubio Gil, 2010). This influences their way of processing information, their understanding of reality and their way of approaching the world; which generates the need to redefine learning environments to more interactive, fast-paced and efficient ones. Organizing your life like a boss is an online course that allows students to detect how they manage their time and learn strategies to increase their productivity. The structure of the course lets students decide when, how, and where they want to do it. This guarantees that the students can start at their own level of knowledge, control their learning pace, and build their own experience. 136 students from Universidad Panamericana were enrolled in the course and the average satisfaction rate was 9.3 on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest grade and 10 being the highest. This paper presents the basic principles for the creation of this educational experience. ©2018 INTED Proceedings.

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Entrepreneurship and innovation lab : a proposal for the enhancement of an entrepreneurial profile in undergraduate students

2017 , Chávez Tellerias, Rocio , Repellin Moreno, Adriana Agnes , Mendieta Jiménez, Bertha Alicia

An ageing society, the development of a computational world through artificial intelligence, a new media ecology and superstructured organizations in a globally connected world, are some of the main drivers of change form the fourth industrial revolution and reshape the future workforce landscape, according to a foresight study from the Institute for the Future (2011). Likewise, the World Economic Forum (2016), states that skills such as negotiation, service orientation, critical thinking, judgement and decision making, emotional intelligence, co-ordinating with others, creativity and complex problem solving are some of the most relevant for the workforce in the future economic context. Furthermore, such skills define an entrepreneur, thus entrepreneurial education becomes even more meaningful for a student’s undergraduate experience. For the purposes of this study, we understand entrepreneurial education as the initiatives that seek to prepare responsible and entrepreneurial people, with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to reach their established goals for a meaningful life (European Union, 2015). This profile makes university students versatile professionals, to become entrepreneurs, or change agents through employment. For this reason, Universidad Panamericana at Mexico City seeked to develop an entrepreneurial education project to enhance the students’ academic preparation. The Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab was thus created, for the purpose of strengthening the students’ knowledge and skills for successful entrepreneurship, by scaling their academic projects to entrepreneurial plans. The learning experience designed to achieve this goal, included interdisciplinary teams of students from 5 different majors. They worked through an online introductory course, a networking space, and two “lab days” of conferences and workshops to explore topics such as value proposition, business model, innovation strategy, financial structure, technological routes, communication and planning, leadership and social responsibility. This study aims to explore the experience of the students that participated in the first edition of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab, and how it helped them strengthen their entrepreneurial skills. Research was conducted through a qualitative approach, with individual interviews and focus groups. Results show how students valued the possibility to scale up their own academic projects to entrepreneurial plans, work with interdisciplinary student teams, and receive practical guidance from entrepreneurship experts. Students also shared how they learned to deeply understand the problems they were interested in, and validate their propositions through a practical approach. As a final result, this study proposes effective strategies to develop entrepreneurial profiles in undergraduate studies and recommendations for the design of learning experiences.

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Increasing university students engagement : a guide on how to achieve it in extracurricular non-mandatory academic experiences based on Success Center know how

2020 , Repellin Moreno, Adriana Agnes , Armesto Camargo, Georgina , Rojano, Regina

Since Success Center creation in September 2017, 1,042 students have participated in the center academic experiences. This represents approximately 25% of the University population. The participation of the students is undoubtedly due to the strategies implemented by the center to generate engagement with students. The meaning of student engagement varies from author to author. For this article, we will define student engagement as the degree of involvement, interest, motivation, and attention that students display in their learning process and how connected they are with: 1) the university environment, 2) the university activities, 3) their peers, teachers and the academic staff. For Hobsons, (2019) there are three types of engagement: “Academic engagement refers to how students react to their classwork, lessons, homework, testing, and the hands-on learning that occurs in a school environment. Social engagement contains any participatory activities that happen in school, such as friendships with other students, clubs and activities, special events, or sports. Emotional engagement refers to the personal relationships that students make with adults in their school community (p.6)”. This paper presents how Success Center, an academic center for students in Universidad Panamericana, has increased university students' engagement in extracurricular non-mandatory academic experiences. To attract students' attention, involvement, interest, and motivation it is necessary to take into account and to implement strategies in the three types of engagement exposed above. This article will cover the basic principles to do this, will show specific successful examples, and a guide for anyone that wants to implement this practice in their learning environment. ©2020 INTED2020 Proceedings

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Values and resilience of Mexico City : a workshop designed with an ethical approach to change the perception of Universidad Panamericana's campus community to deal with natural disasters

2020 , Mendieta Jiménez, Bertha Alicia , Armesto Camargo, Georgina , Repellin Moreno, Adriana Agnes

In 1985 Mexico City was struck by an earthquake of 8.1 magnitude on the Richter scale causing major disasters. After this, mexican population received training to evacuate in case of earthquake. Evacuation drills were held every year in all institutions throughout the city. In 2017 Mexico City was hit again by two strong earthquakes. The one on September 19, with a magnitude of 7.1 on the Richter scale, left the city with a balance of 370 deads, 30000 people affected and more than 11000 buildings damaged. Hence, it was concluded that although the population received technical trainings to face natural disasters this was not enough. The Universidad Panamericana (UP) pedagogical research team (SMART Center and CIE), in close cooperation with the UP Engineering School, and the World Resources Institute (WRI) Mexico, worked together designing an innovative experience to: Raise awareness about both the Earth’s and Mexico City’s fragility. Give an integral vision of urban resilience. Present the ethical dimension of urban resilience. Generate proposals from UP campus community to reinforce the values required to contribute to urban resilience before, during and after the disaster. To achieve this goals and guide the introduction of new concepts, reflect on them, allow an active involvement and interaction among participants, a workshop format was chosen. To activate social relationship dynamics, to foster open attitudes and to stimulate a problem solving approach, three pedagogical principles were followed: interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and activeness. The workshop “Values and Resilience of Mexico City” sought to be a place for dialogue and ideation to obtain proposals from Universidad Panamericana’s campus community in order to reinforce the values that are required to contribute to urban resilience, aligned with the educational philosophy of the university: ethical and social responsibility to face emergencies arising from natural disasters. 124 people from 7 different fields of study participated. After the event the perception of knowledge and capability of the participants to contribute in a disaster from an ethical perspective increased in 44%. The experience was positively received and sparked a special enthusiasm among participants since they discovered the importance of the ethical component when facing any disaster. This paper will present the educational actions and pedagogical strategies used in the workshop in order for anyone to replicate it. ©2020 INTED2020 Proceedings.

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How to generate a motivative, effective, trusting, innovative and creative work environment that fosters the creation of innovative educational experiences : Smart Center ideation

2020 , Armesto Camargo, Georgina , Repellin Moreno, Adriana Agnes , Nicolás Gavilán, María Teresa

Nowadays, education institutions seek to innovate their methodologies to enhance their learning processes to be more effective. To achieve this, it is fundamental for the people who create educational experiences to build a high-performance work team. For this, working in atmospheres that foster motivation, effectiveness, creativity, innovation, and trust is vital. Project managers play a central role in setting the work environment that generates a high-performance work team. A high-performance work team is "a group of goal-focused individuals with [...] complementary skills who collaborate, innovate and produce a consistently superior result. "[1] This paper presents the project management process that SMART CENTER, a student center at Universidad Panamericana, followed to achieve an innovative, effective and highly engaging experience called SMART Room for more than 100 students in a time frame of 5 weeks and a team of only 10 people. This article will cover each step taken for the ideation, organization, planning, and execution of the SMART Room and will explain the basic principles so that anyone can replicate it in their teams and projects. ©2020 Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability; North American Business Press.

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Success Center : a center for the development of soft skills among Universidad Panamericana students

2017 , García Higuera, María del Carmen , Repellin Moreno, Adriana Agnes , Matienzo Cáceres, Yanira

Higher education institutions have sought to develop in students the knowledge and abilities that prepare them to a particular profession in the current job market and to shape personality traits necessary through life (Shakir, 2009). Graduates should not only be experts in a certain field, but also they need mature personalities, with a well-balanced, rounded off education. Many colleges and universities are focused in promoting students with the highest ethical standards and a strong sense of responsibility for society. In its mission statement, Universidad Panamericana (UP) expresses these values, convinced that only college graduates with these abilities will help Mexico raise its capacity for professional competencies, creativity and innovation. However, a gap has been identified between the skills college graduates have and those needed to succeed at the job place (Schultz, 2008). Under this consideration, UP proposed two venues as an effort to assure a learning model that integrates soft skills. First, a proposal to work with professors in order to include soft skills into curricula; and second, the Success Center (SC), as a specific initiative to address student competencies outside the classroom. This paper describes the experience of creating the SC and the results obtained during its first year of operation.The SC initiated in the spring of 2016 with two projects: the first project was a logo design student contest for the center. The final design is used as the SC official logo. This project helped students not only develop awareness about the new center, but also about the need to acquire soft skills for their lives after college. The second project was a survey conducted among students to identify the perceived needs of attitudes and competencies for their integral development. The survey was available to the students in different open spaces throughout the university for two days and was accessible online for two weeks. 1,321 students from all disciplines answered the survey. Results include time management, oral and written communication, critical and creative thinking, negotiation and personal finance as important soft skills to develop among students. Based on the survey, the SC proposed 16 projects to be released the next academic year. These projects seek to address students in different stages of their college experience. Moreover, SC team up with academic colleges in order to attract more students and to develop skills and competencies for the specific professional fields. In addition, SC worked with other centers inside the university such as the Center for Innovation in Education and student organizations, in order to better understand student needs. During the first year, nearly 12% of the undergraduate population participated in at least one project experience, and most of them are now ambassadors for the services provided by the SC. Encouraged by the first year student participation, 18 new projects will be offered in next year with follow-up tests of the skills acquired. Initiatives like the SC are thus documented as an example of how to enhance soft skills in students in order for them to compete in a globalized world. ©2017, Iated Academy S.L.