Page 68 - Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century

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Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching and Learning 2021
By the fourth practical, other soil properties and laboratory results, such as plasticity index and liquid limit, are introduced. This allows the students to determine soil properties
using more information and with a greater degree of confidence. Soil drainage properties are directly responsible for some of the tragic mass movements and landslides that we witnessed in KwaZulu-Natal in April 2022 in response to flooding; these properties control the loss of cohesion by soil particles when wet (https://theconversation.com/how-geology- put-a-south-african-city-at-risk-of-landslides-181627). This again reinforces the relevance and importance of the place-based education modality, potentially allowing graduates to solve real-world problems.
Incorporating entrepreneurship and 4IR
Entrepreneurship education in all disciplines, especially those external to business studies such as science and engineering, has been acknowledged as being integral in educating and training innovative graduates for the future (Mwasalwiba 2010; Mwasalwiba, Groenewegen & Wakkee 2014; Maresch, Harms, Kailer & Wimmer-Wurm 2016; Aadland & Aaboen 2020). Entrepreneurship is indeed a critical skill that the next generation of geologists will need to possess (Keane & Houlton 2012; Cohen 2018), more so in South Africa where employment opportunities in the mining industry have declined drastically since the late 1990s (Mantashe 2008). So, when revamping the APG2B module, we also decided to instil an entrepreneurship spirit in our students by incorporating Geology-aligned entrepreneurship education alongside the authentic case studies (Aadland & Aaboen 2020). We did this using the for (educating entrepreneurially) and in (helping students become innovative within the field
of Geology) approaches (Mwasalwiba 2010). We wanted them to realise that they can start businesses that use their fundamental Geology knowledge to solve problems resulting from geological factors (Cohen 2018).
Our approach also highlighted that their innovative solutions can utilise emerging technologies based on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) even when they do not
have the knowledge of coding and software development themselves. To demonstrate
to the students the potential and feasibility of Geology-backed entrepreneurship, we exposed them to some South African examples of enterprises that were recently started from the inspiration of modernisation. One example that has been impactful is a start-up called Busiwana Mining and Civil Technologies, founded by Mr Mikateko Kubayi who is an alumnus of the Department of Geology at UJ. Busiwana supplies mining and civil operations with customised products that use the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect wireless and sensor technologies that provide real-time optimisation data with big data and analytics capabilities. So far, our entrepreneurship education context has been a teacher-directed approach with an imitation learning context (Aadland & Aaboen 2020). But we plan to evolve it to a combination of participatory and self-directed approaches (Aadland & Aaboen 2020), by getting the students to complete assignments/projects that will train them with formulating innovative solutions.