Educational innovations: four rooms, four atmospheres
In 2020, 16 projects were selected as part of the Muse #Take Off 4 program. This call for projects had a budget of over €1 million to support innovative educational equipment. Eighteen months later, what is the status of these projects? Let's head to the chemistry school and the dentistry, medicine, and law faculties, where small revolutions are underway.
You are on the beach in Agde, and lifeguards have just rescued a young man from drowning. As they bring him back to the beach, you prepare to administer first aid: you are a young doctor. You have been trained for this moment. However, the cries of his loved ones, the stares of the vacationers gathering around you, the sound of a helicopter approaching... Your university did not prepare you for this stress! Here is a sentence that young doctors will soon no longer be able to say.
Imaginason: collective immersion
The scenario we have just described is precisely one of those that students will now be able to prepare for thanks to Imaginason, the Faculty of Medicine's new teaching equipment designed for collective immersion learning. In concrete terms: a video sequence, for example the drowning on Agde beach, is projected onto the walls of a room in which students will have to provide appropriate care to a robot patient. Immersion through sound and image plunges future doctors into an environment very close to the real-life situations in which they will one day have to intervene.
"Creating a stressful environment for students and placing them in a contextualized scenario capable of generating emotion not only better prepares them for the real-life conditions of their profession, but also helps to reinforce their reflexes," explains Blaise Debien, emergency physician and head of teaching at the Emergency Care Teaching Center at Montpellier University Hospital.
Numodonto: the hub
Let's now move on to the Faculty of Dentistry, which began its digital transition 10 years ago with the integration of haptic simulation and 3D glasses for teaching anatomy, for example. "Digital technology now allows us to create fully customized teaching sequences and working models that enable us to reproduce all clinical situations. These models are produced on site using 3D printing by François Bertrand, a dental technician," explains Jean-Cédric Durand, vice dean of the faculty.
Computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) permeates the walls of this university and hospital complex, with, among other things, the recruitment of Professor Michel Fages and the creation of thefirst medical unit dedicated to this technique in 2015. The Faculty is going even further by now offering a hub center that is unique in Europe. Equipped with various scanners and several specialized software programs, this hub will enable students to work on fully digital models in exercises as diverse as dental morphology, prosthetics, aesthetics, dentofacial orthopedics, implantology, and more.
"With this equipment, sessions will be faster and more efficient than with the current physical materials. The exercises will becloser to real-life situations," explains Michel Fages. Digital technology also reduces the cost of materials for students, lowering the price of dental kits. Named after François Duret, the inventor of dental CAD/CAM, the hub center will welcome its first students early next year. "This is the culmination of a commitment and a constant desire to be attractive to the younger generation of teachers and to bring them together," concludes the vice dean as he closes the door.
Justitia: the courtroom
Third setting: the mock courtroom at the Faculty of Law. Designed with the help of an architect, this teaching facility is an exact replica of a real courtroom as found in a courthouse. "This active learning tool is a first in the United States and even in Europe in a university setting. This room will allow students to organize their moot court or public speaking competitions while feeling as if they are in a real-life situation. " explains the dean of the faculty, Guylain Clamour.
Equipped with a dual videoconferencing system, this facility will also enable students in Montpellier to collaborate with students from other universities. "A partnership is already in place with Paris 2," adds the dean. A connected camera will enable live streaming of sessions on the university's YouTube channel. The modularity of the room also allows for versatility, as it can be converted intoa"committee room, like those in the National Assembly, for political science students. The official inauguration is scheduled for January, but it is already in high demand," concludes Guylain Clamour.
Créactive: design thinking
Finally, we head to the School of Chemistry, where the Creactive project offers students a space dedicated to learning how to manage projects based on stimulating creativity. This is a second stage for EPIIC projects, which for the past two years have been putting students in a position to develop, as a team, an innovation for commercialization. To help them in this process, Creactive is a creative room based on the principle of design thinking. It is a modular space equipped with everything needed to stimulate intra-team exchanges: furniture, tablets, video projection and videoconferencing equipment, cloud software, and more.
In order to promote the design of innovative functional parts, ENSCM has also acquired , thanks to #Take Off 4, a system of 3D printers that can combine different types of materials: molecular, ceramic particles, resins, and photosensitive polymers. Project-based learning plays an important role in ENSCM's teaching approach. The EPIICs projects, through their scope and the achievements they will bring, will be an important vehicle for communicating this to our future students," concludes David Virieux, the project leader.