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This article was originally published on December 18, 2024, on Conecta.
For the fifth consecutive year, projects developed by Tecnologico de Monterrey professors received QS Reimagine Education Awards 2024, considered the “Oscars” of education. These recognitions are organized by the British assessor QS Quacquarelli Symonds, composer of the QS World University Rankings, one of the lists of the best universities in the world.
“These awards motivate Tecnologico de Monterrey to maintain its culture of educational innovation,” said Beatriz Palacios, Educational Innovation and Digital Learning leader at Tec. “With this award, we are certain we can offer valuable educational solutions for our students, but it also means we are highly recognized and valued by other institutions worldwide,” she added.
Educational innovation: the four winning projects
Here are some details of the winning 2024 QS Reimagine Education Awards projects.
1. Gold Medal: AGORA Ecosystem of Spaces
This Directorate of Educational Innovation and Digital Education project, AGORA Ecosystem of Spaces, won the gold medal in the Blended and Presence Learning category.
“Winning this award means that our educational innovations bring something new to resolving our global challenges in education,” said Patricia Aldape, Director of Learning Experience Innovation. The AGORA Ecosystem consists of three innovative spaces that integrate pedagogical models and strategies with advanced technologies to promote active, experiential, and memorable learning in students.
“For AGORA, the Ecosystem of Spaces validates our view that educational spaces are critical to fostering innovation, collaboration, and discovery. It confirms our commitment to creating environments that inspire, transform, and empower students and teachers,” said Aldape Valdés.
The first of these spaces is the Hologram Effect Teacher (Holoroom). It recreates the natural dynamics of face-to-face environments where students interact in real-time with their classmates and a teacher appearing in a hologram. The second is the Hall Immersive Room (HIR), an immersive experience using advanced audiovisual technology. The third is the Extended Reality Classroom (XR-Room). It offers a dynamic and flexible environment for teachers to integrate learning experiences into their classes with Virtual, Mixed, and Augmented Reality.
2. Gold Medal: Cultivating Complex Reasoning Skills to Empower Lifelong Learners
The Institute for the Future of Education also received a gold medal in the Lifelong Learning category for Cultivating Complex Reasoning Skills to Empower Lifelong Learners.
“This is a tremendous honor that recognizes the efforts and passion of all of us who comprise the R4C-IRG research group. This award reflects our commitment to educational innovation and solutions that truly impact people’s lives. It validates that we are on the right path, promoting lifelong learning to adapt to a continuously changing world,” said professor and researcher Jhonattan Miranda.
The project seeks to improve students’ reasoning skills through strategic projects based on open educational model principles that train participants to address global challenges using critical, innovative, systemic, and scientific thinking.
“This award is the result of many people’s efforts, from the vision of the rectors and directors who support research through the Challenges program to the actions of the researchers, all supported by administrative people, students, professors, academic communities, entrepreneurs, suppliers, government, civil society, and above all, our families, who are the primary supporters of all our work,” said Dr. María Soledad Ramírez.
For her part, Dr. Inés Álvarez emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration to achieve this recognition. “Receiving this award collectively highlights the importance of interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral work. It is a pride to contribute to this institution’s construction of a better future, reaching as many people as possible. The human and capital resources invested are beginning to appear in these achievements, which increasingly impact the communities we serve relevantly,” she said.
3. Silver Medal: Cross-Cultural Classroom (3C): Empowering Future Leaders with Sustainable Citizenship
In the Sustainability Education Literacy category, the School of Engineering and Sciences’ Cross-Cultural Classroom (3C) project earned the silver medal.
“As teachers, winning this international award from QS is a great joy, satisfaction, and recognition of our ideas, creativity, collaboration, work, and innovation,” said Professor Eduardo Juárez.
The project is a collaboration between Tec, the University of Hong Kong, the International Islamic University of Malaysia, and Srinakharinwirot University in Thailand. In this joint effort, professors and students from these four universities in eight countries and eleven academic disciplines participated in a learning experience to build better futures and understand themselves as humanity, working to create local solutions worldwide.
“It invites us as citizens to strengthen and replicate intercultural classrooms so our universities can continue to take much responsibility for building a better future for our planet,” Juárez said.
4. Bronze Medal: TecDrone, Assessment of STEM Competencies using VR & AI
This Directorate of Educational Innovation and Digital Education project won the bronze medal in the Learning Assessment category. “Winning with TecDrone recognizes a solution to the challenge of competency assessment, managing to connect theory and practice,” said Ana Gabriela Rodríguez, educational innovation leader.
TecDrone is an authentic engineering competency assessment that connects students to real challenges where they research, build, and test drones in a virtual reality environment. In this scenario, the student makes key decisions about drone design and application as they confront practical situations that simulate real-world challenges.
“The evaluation of competencies is a great challenge in education because it requires observing how students consciously apply their knowledge to solve situations that reflect reality. Receiving this recognition means having taken an important step in this direction because, with the support of technologies, students demonstrate their learning authentically and innovatively while the teacher assesses their performance more efficiently,” said Adriana Plata, leader of Educational Innovation.
In the experience, the student interacts through an AI avatar to argue their choices. At the same time, the teacher, through a digital platform, has a detailed view of the student’s results and achievement of competencies. This allows for a more accurate and consistent assessment, focused not only on a grade but on genuinely interpreting the student’s technical and decision-making skills development. “This innovation overcomes the difficulty of assessing competencies authentically,” said Ana Gabriela Rodríguez, leader of educational innovation. “It helps ensure that students apply what they have learned in concrete situations while also offering consistent and effective assessment, preparing future engineers to face global problems with real solutions.”
QS Reimagine Education Awards 2024
Last year, 14 projects developed at Tec de Monterrey were announced as finalists of the 2024 QS Reimagine Education Awards, considered the “Oscars of education. This award assesses innovative programs, technology, and pedagogical approaches that revolutionize education in 18 categories. Each year, more than 1,200 project submissions worldwide are evaluated by an international jury comprising more than 900 specialists.
In 2024, they celebrated their eleventh edition, recognizing pioneering pedagogical approaches that improve learning outcomes, employability, and effective sustainability teaching methods. It occurred from December 9 to 11 in London during the QS Reimagine Education Conference.
Smart Forests, a project of the Brazilian university FACENS and Engage, Empower, Excel: PolyU’s Smart Campus Innovation project from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, were the joint winners of the $25,000 (US) Global Education Prize, which both winners will share.
The Global EdTech Award was awarded to ZNotes, a community-driven online platform. Offering free access to high-quality educational resources and peer-to-peer learning support, ZNotes has reached 6 million students worldwide.
Translation by: Daniel Wetta
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This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
