1. Gamechanging education 2 Co-evolving TLA with industry D.W. Nicoll Director of Entrepreneurship, Student placement and Indusity Limkokwing Lesotho

3. Every planet, country, university, faculty, programme, each module we teach, each lecturer, student, does not exist in a vacuum

4. Every programme, every module, every student sits within a constellation of social systems—the faculty, the university, the discipline, the academic community, industries, the community at large—that should also influence what is taught, when it is taught, and how it is taught.

6. We should all become acquainted with: how a particular program sits within others withinthe faculty,

7. We should all become acquainted with: how each faculty relates (beyond cross teaching into multi disciplinary work),

8. We should all become acquainted with: how our institution complements and situates amongst all others at the disciplinary level (i.e. what’s the qualitative difference, if any, between a degree in computing from NUL and ourselves, what about Univ of the Free state?),

9. We should all become acquainted with: how this discipline sits within local and regional industry, which industries are growing, and; how do these industries relate to serving the community?

10. What do we know about other programmes which are doing the same as we are locally and regionally?What do we know about the other programmes that are being taught here at LUCT?What do I know of the local industry which relates to the programme I teach upon, if there are none, how could this programme possibly fit in, what would it take for it to fit in?What do I know of regional industries which relate to the programme I teach upon, who are the main players, how have they made their name, what does it take to join them? How many people do they hire a year?What are the obvious and glaring needs of the local and regional communities, and how is industry or government, or NGOs not addressing these? How could our students address these?

11. Every student comes to us with expectations, expectations of how they will be taught, what they will be taught, how they will learn subjects – most of this will be based upon their formal schooling experience.If they were ‘spoon-fed’ facts – then they will likely expect the same from us. If they learned to cheat on exams then why should they do anything different here?

12. Learning comprises formal and informal elements, taught and self-directed elements, abstract theoretical and practice elements, learning about something, learning to do something, learning to be something, learning to transform, assimilate, integrate and incorporate

13. Every student is situated within a constellation of institutional and knowledge organising systems—the lecturer, other students doing the same module, the module within the streams making up the overall programmes of a faculty—that will also influence what is learned, when it is learned, and how it is learned.

15. How does a particular student relate to the module contents and style of teaching? How has the lecturer interpreted and chosen to pass on the knowledge? How does this particular module sit with others that the lecturer teaches, and others that the student is learning, and the others it is related to in the overall stream? Do the streams of modules properly combine and assimilate to produce a strong overall programme? How does the programme relate with others within the faculty?

17. What they must know and be able to do, and what they should know and be able to do, and what they could know and be able to do

18. We must identify at programme level:1. The jobs, tasks, roles and responsibilities our students must be able to perform and take on when they join their respective industries

19. Then we can consider what they should and could be able to do, independently and/or as part of a team

20. We must identify at stream level:1. The skills, knowledge, and examples our students must be exposed to in order to meet the learning objectives of the programme

21. We must identify at module level:1. The skills, knowledge, and examples our students must be exposed to in order to meet the learning objectives of the module

23. How do, or rather how can we learn? From books and publications including the internet, from direct experience, from practice, from the community, from research, from each other, co-learning with other students, with lecturers, with industry advisors.What do each of these offer as a learning resource over the others?

24. How do, or rather how can we learn? From books and publications including the internet, from direct experience, from practice, from the community, from research, from each other, co-learning with other students, with lecturers, with industry advisors.What do each of these offer as a learning resource over the others?

25. How do, or rather how can we learn? from the community,

26. How do, or rather how can we learn? from practice,

27. How do, or rather how can we learn? From TV?

28. from direct experience,

29. How do, or rather how can we learn? From books and publications including the internet,

30. From books, our education and the literature, from case studies, formulas, from examples of best practice, from theories, from blueprints, forms and formats, we learn generic and/or universal aspects of our chosen fields

31. From research and our experience of industry, our communities and wider life (our hopes, fears and aspirations) we learn specific and/or individual aspects of our chosen fields

32. Through play, tinkering, mucking about, trial and error, through asking questions, testing boundaries, breaking rules, through criticising, ripping apart, intelligently plagiarising, mashing, breaking, assimilating, incorporating, synthesising, interrogating and investigating... We learn... 2 + 2 = 5

33. To create a holistic learning environment and experience for our students, valuable and relevant experience, we must blend – local realities, limitations, and conditions, with global examples of best practice and applications

35. Also local industry here has something to learn from the application of global best practice and the proper exploitation and packaging of local produce, facilities and opportunities (i.e. tourism ideas and ‘Brand Lesotho’)

36. Our duty as leaders is to how best to lead our students to what they need to know and to what they must be able to do in order to be employable in the fields in which they have shown interest – locally, regionally and the world…

37. Limkokwing prides itself as a global, industry-led university.More than this differentiating us against traditional models of the university, how can we make this work for us here?

38. Through teaching staff and students interacting with the immediate external world of industry and the wider community, making this a valuable, unique and integral part of the TLA process (different from marketing)

39. Guest speakers, site visits, industrial placements, competitions, conference presentations, displays, shows, books, consultancies, TV programmes, debates, projects etc. – nothing new, many universities and colleges have done this for ages

40. We want to use ideas from customer relationship management to keep track of interactions with the object of making them more meaningful and relevant for both the industrial partner and for the learning processes of the student.

41. There are plenty of examples of bad learning experiences for both industry and student experiences of placements.

42. i.e. students who are supposed to be getting experience in HR management, spending the semester filing or even sweeping the floors

43. i.e. companies who wished to engage students to complete a task only to have it poorly finished, due to lack of appropriate skill level, or unfinished due to lack of time and proper project management by academic staff and students

44. To let this happen, especially in Lesotho due to its size, will sour our relation to the private and public sectors so our interactions must be managed

45. Also, we must maximise each interaction so as to derive the largest amount of benefit from it to our teaching and learning effort

46. At, the same time we must ensure we deliver on time and at the quality expected by industry

47. This places an additional role on the lecturer and their PRLs – as arbitrators of what the students can and cannot do as projects – in some cases lecturers may have to make-up for the shortcomings of students

48. In any case the shortcomings will feature in the marking schemes of assignments and projects

49. We must identify and be intimately acquainted with:1. The skills, knowledge and experience our students must possess when they join their respective industries

52. What’s the difference between being produce able to satisfactorily produce for LTV, SABC, and AL Jezzera?

54. Particular local knowledge is gained through local research done by staff and students – every staff member should strive to become an expert on the local application of the knowledge domain they teach

55. I.E. someone teaching Javascript language should seek out – via contact with local companies – examples of Javascript’s application and development

56. In addition they should know the value of it regionally and globally, and against other languages, those existent and emerging

57. They should, for sure, identify local, regional and global practioners, be aware of the most successful companies at each level, and have an idea of what it takes to join such companies

58. That is our bench mark to whether we are doing a good job or not…

59. This same company can provide a guest speaker – they should talk about the business in Lesotho - opportunities, threats etc. They should also provide some insight to the organisation of work, site visit?

60. To begin with ask yourself the question: Could I supplant my assignments with industry projects? Could I include industry relevant problems in my exams?

61. Leadership Is a …Mutual Discovery Process.

64. Academic staff choose and liaise with industry advisor Industry advisor and academics have input into project given to students Academic staff mentor students to meet deadline and quality required by industry

65. Student submits project assignment to both academic staff and industry advisor Industry advisor and academics provide feedback and/or marking in concordance with proficiency and any shortcomings on professional standards/usability Net result is that students and academic staff get exposed to industry expectations of proficiency and industry gets a potentially useful product/design/plan or idea