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We call for a paradigm shift in engineering education. We are entering the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (“4IR”), accelerated by Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). Disruptive changes affect all industrial sectors and society, leading to increased uncertainty that makes it impossible to predict what lies ahead. Therefore, gradual cultural change in education is no longer an option to ease social pain. The vast majority of engineering education and training systems, which have remained largely static and underinvested for decades, are inadequate for the emerging 4IR and AI labour markets. Nevertheless, some positive developments can be observed in the reorientation of the engineering education sector. Novel approaches to engineering education are already providing distinctive, technology-enhanced, personalised, student-centred curriculum experiences within an integrated and unified education system. We need to educate engineering students for a future whose key characteristics are volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (“VUCA”). Talent and skills gaps are expected to increase in all industries in the coming years. The authors argue for an engineering curriculum that combines timeless didactic traditions such as Socratic inquiry, mastery-based and project-based learning and first-principles thinking with novel elements, e.g., student-centred active and e-learning with a focus on case studies, as well as visualization/metaverse and gamification elements discussed in this paper, and a refocusing of engineering skills and knowledge enhanced by AI on human qualities such as creativity, empathy and dexterity. These skills strengthen engineering students’ perceptions of the world and the decisions they make as a result. This 4IR engineering curriculum will prepare engineering students to become curious engineers and excellent collaborators who navigate increasingly complex multistakeholder ecosystems. Full article

The 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in 2015 have created renewed interest in sustainability in education. Geography education is a discipline that studies most of the issues related to the SDGs and has a significant role to play in the Anthropocene. Current debates on curricular sustainability and geography education suggest that geography educators are integrating sustainability in different ways but not all approaches have the same transformative impact. The aim of this study is to provide a theoretical model that determines different levels of transformation that could be helpful for advancing in curricular sustainability in geography education. The proposed model is called The Transformative Sustainable Curricula (TSC) model. Its development has relied on two processes that have involved, at the same time, two different methodologies: the creation of the model through documentary analysis, and its validation from interviews with experts in education for sustainability and geography education. The model is structured in three levels or stages: adaptation, reform and transformation. Each level has been characterized according to the following elements: the perspectives of sustainable development; the type of sustainable education; transformative learning; ecology of knowledge; institutional integration; context, change and community. The proposal makes teachers aware of where their teaching practice is located and how to move forward. It is also useful to determine what elements constitute a prop for sustainability and how these can guide educators and scholars in scaling vertically and horizontally their contribution towards a geographic education that is more sustainable and transformative, should they wish to do so. Full article

Education has been traditionally considered as a means to promote and disseminate sustainable development through the reorientation of the curriculum towards sustainability at all levels of the educational system. Higher Education Institutions take a leading role in this process. However, they face several limitations, including their lack of training in the topic, which is complex and difficult to fit into disciplines to begin with. This paper presents the experience of the Working Group on Curricular Sustainability of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Murcia (Spain), carried out within the framework of a pilot project of teaching innovation whose objective was the incorporation of sustainability in the Degree in Economics. In doing so, a Sustainability Competency Map was drawn up and open educational resources that enable students to acquire these competencies were developed. Full article

There has been a constant advance of the labour markets and permanent reorientation towards digital Industry 4.0. Yet, the environments for learning remain unchallenged when it comes to the provision of new professionals across the globe. Therefore, this has created a gap in transversal competences, which has compelled students of higher learning institutions to pursue them. The majority of higher learning institutions have emphasised transversal skills among learners and developed curriculums to accomplish these demands. The primary focus of the study was to attain integration and fusion of transversal skills into the development of specialised curriculum training for foreign language proficiency. The study applied mixed methodology techniques, which combined qualitative and quantitative methods in the study. To guarantee cohesion of the study, four research and monitoring techniques such as course dossiers, needs analysis, task-based activities and adapted competences scales were used. The outcome of the research shows findings provided by the piloting stage of the teaching experience and emphasises the need for student-based skill training. Full article

The University Jaume I of Castellon (Spain) launched the “ImpSDGup” course in 2017. The aim of this training course on professional education for sustainable development (ESD) skills and competences for higher education teachers is to help academics in reorienting their subjects’ curricula in order to contribute to the sustainable development goals of the United Nations’ Agenda 2030. The “ImpSDGup” course is based on the Training Model in Transformative Action for Sustainability (TMTAS) model that is structured in three main areas: the content on sustainability, the theoretical approaches, and the ESD teaching and learning methodologies. In this paper, we describe the design and the contents of the training course and we investigate the changes that participants of the course implemented in the design of their subject programs. The methodology of the study was based on content analysis. The main results show that most of the 55 university teachers that undertook the course in its three editions succeeded in transforming course objectives and that they incorporated some of the SDGs and several ESD active learning methodologies in their teaching. As a consequence of this, we consider that the course helps in enhancing university teachers’ ESD professional competences. Full article