Ural Federal University: Number of Project-Based Learning Education Programs Growing in University
Project-based learning has been developing at UrFU for a number of years now. During their studies, students work with real customers and their proposed cases, solve tasks set by companies under the guidance of supervisors, and form a complete picture of the work to be done. Valentina Ovchinnikova, deputy vice-rector for the Development of Educational Activities for Project Education and Additional Professional Education, told about the development of this format of training.
Over the past two semesters, the number of educational programs that implement project-based learning and the number of students studying in them has increased significantly. While 877 projects were implemented in academic year 2020/21, by the fall semester of this year 946 projects had already been implemented.
The leader in terms of the number of completed projects was the Engineering School of Information Technologies, Telecommunications and Control Systems. Students participated in the implementation of 464 initiatives from internal and external customers – large development companies and well-known industrial enterprises, as well as from the university.
Programs where project-based learning is used are varied. Students from advertising to mechanical engineering can get experience with real cases and see the result of their work in action, and their ideas can later be implemented in production. Students develop projects from the first to the fourth year, each year increasing their skills and becoming more and more immersed in a real working environment. Customer companies come to the university with different requests, from on-site work to theoretical developments.
“Project-based learning is a strategic project of the university, which allows students to gain real-world job skills and strengthen their training in their specialty by solving actual tasks of enterprises. We expect to launch 90% of educational programs using this format by 2025. The student will be able to build a basic career at the enterprise, understand how his or her future profession will be arranged, and as a result – make a conscious choice with an understanding of the prospects of professional activity. For companies, project work also has its advantages. They can invite aspiring specialists for a job or an internship at an early career stage, knowing all the advantages of a particular student,” emphasized Valentina Ovchinnikova.
The aspiring specialists can try themselves as employees of such companies as Ural Civil Aviation Plant, Kalinin Machine-Building Plant, Alfa-Bank, SKB Kontur, Ural Security Systems Center, etc. In total more than 190 Russian and international companies signed a cooperation agreement with the university.
By academic year 2022/23, the number of educational programs that include project-based learning will increase to 63%. Video tutorials on each digital service have been developed for heads of the educational programs, supervisors, and students so that the work does not create additional difficulties for them.