Giving high regard to innovation and digitalization, Mapúa University has been employing new digital technologies to effectively deliver its education and improve its level of attainment of intended academic outcomes.

In 2017, Mapúa initiated Digital Days, delivering synchronous online lectures to about 2,300 students in about 100 classes. It was soon followed by the launching of Digital Academics, its online education platform with the University offering the Master of Engineering in Industrial Engineering (MEP-IE), the Philippines first fully online, engineering graduate program.

Breaking barriers in knowledge dissemination, Mapúa has also invested in online undergraduate classes with its implementation of Digital Rush. Courses are scheduled from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., for its students to avoid the traffic rush hours.

Teaching-learning innovations

In 2018, Mapúa had launched a new teaching-learning innovation, STEM Teach Mapúa, providing free online teaching enhancement trainings for Senior High School (SHS) teachers of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) strand.

Online courses in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, and Statistics subjects were made accessible to over 400 teachers nationwide.

Mapúa utilized its digital learning technologies such as the Blackboard Learn and Blackboard Collaborate, its learning management system, to deliver the trainings online.

Increasing online resources

In 2018, Mapúa University has also a closed a new partnership with Panopto, a leading video platform for business and education, as its lecture capture and video content management partner. Mapúa is the first university in the Philippines to implement the use of Panopto software in its online class discussions.

Panopto’s integration with the Blackboard virtual learning environment will allow both students and teachers at Mapúa to easily access and view classroom videos as part of their regular learning activities.

“Mapúa University takes a learner-centered approach to education,” said Dr. Arnold Paglinawan, Director of Mapúa’s Center for Teaching and Learning ¬– Outcomes Based Education. “Panopto will help us facilitate flipped classrooms and other blended learning pedagogies, which we anticipate will have a very positive impact on the learning experiences of our students.”

On the implementation of new online programs

“Having implemented a fully online program, we are now looking into conducting studies on the effectivity of our online courses. A study will give us more insights and will help us in the attainment of our desired student-learning outcomes,” added Dean Rex Robielos, dean of Mapúa’s School of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management.

With the success of the implementation on MEP-IE, Mapúa is eyeing to launch a new set of fully online programs, namely, Master of Engineering and Master of Science (MS) in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, and MS in Mechanical Engineering.