More than 3.000 professors, researchers, students, administrators, and academic authorities from across the country gathered to discuss how to modernize the university system and adapt it to the challenges of the present.
During the First National Congress on University Innovation "Teaching, Research, Management, and Territory," organized on August 28 and 29 by the National Interuniversity Council and the UNR, participants analyzed what the new generations of students are like, how they learn, what their language is like, what they expect, how they project themselves, and how to innovate so that university education is transformative.
During the keynote panel "University and Innovation in Teaching," Claudia Torcomian, PhD in Social Sciences from the National University of Córdoba, affirmed that two issues are in crisis: the transmission of knowledge in the classroom and teacher authority, because knowledge is no longer transmitted solely in schools and universities.
"For previous generations, knowledge was found by getting to the bottom of things. For these new generations, meaning is not at the bottom, but rather distributed on the surface." He argued that the two psychological processes underlying learning, such as memory and attention, are being modified and losing power because cognitive functions are being delegated to search engines, hyperlinks, and artificial intelligence.
The specialist believes it's necessary to innovate because the settings and ways in which individuals learn have changed, but she also observes a weakening of the symbolic world, of the way we inhabit encounters and forge connections. In this sense, she believes classrooms must be places of encounter, of generating thought that will be shared with other human and non-human agencies. In this new time and space, "we must value the classroom as a laboratory of thought, and be open to testing, correcting, and trying again."
For Daniel Badenes, PhD in Communications at the National University of Quilmes, it's impossible to imagine today's subjects without social media, video games, and artificial intelligence. Today's young people entering university are generations steeped in virtuality: six out of ten use cell phones more than five hours a day, and TikTok leads the way in usage time.
"These technologies are not a tool or a technical device, but an ambient world. There is no longer an environment to enter and exit, but rather a system that permeates us. They are technologies of life that transform our daily conditions of study, work, leisure, and rest," he reflected.
Group work
Badenes proposes organizing time, hours of interaction with the teacher, and independent work. Furthermore, he proposes incorporating new, more convergent languages, alternative forms of reading, and artificial intelligence to promote ethical and responsible use as a digital citizen. In the face of the logic of individualization and the atomized subjectivities promoted by networks, "it is essential to recover group work as a way of encountering others."
“Sometimes the oldest can be the most innovative. The classroom offers us the opportunity to mingle, to surprise ourselves with a different opinion or reasoning, to break the bubbles of fragmentation and rebuild the common ground. That, too, is innovation,” he emphasized.
Silvia Andreoli, a Master's in Educational Technology from the University of Buenos Aires, affirmed that the time to learn is not the same as the time to mechanically produce. "What we do at the University is to put profound knowledge into practice; it's not about listening to someone speak or producing an essay in five minutes. It's about thinking, comparing ideas, and learning to reflect."
In the face of mechanical production, he urges a revaluation of the process as knowledge in itself. "We teachers are not going to compete for epistemic authority over who knows more and with what accuracy, because our role is not to repeat, but to construct." While digital technology can be established as a major innovation, he admitted that it can be restrictive when it offers homogeneous responses trained with an unknown corpus.
"How do we support educational journeys, how do we maintain and deepen connections, how do we promote the desire to learn, how do we define agreements that enable innovative practices with judgment and commitment?" he asks, believing that the University must take an active role in this context.
The debate about the necessary changes in the university system takes on a new dimension when considering the expansion of the system in recent years in our country: until 1983, there were 300.000 students, and today there are more than 2 million. It's worth noting that of the 131 national universities, 65 are public and account for 82% of the students.
The proportion of university students between the ages of 18 and 24 who belong to the country's lowest socioeconomic groups has tripled in the last 30 years, according to data from the Educational Policy Laboratory at the National University of Hurlingham. "This demonstrates the upward mobility," said Melina Fernández, a graduate in Educational Sciences at the same university.
Rosario not only hosted this academic meeting, but also marked a starting point for designing the future University, reaffirming the role of public education as a driver of social transformation and development for the entire country.
Journalist: Victoria Arrabal/Photographer: Camila Casero