A Constructionism-Based Integrated Learning Framework to Promoting 21st Century Learners of IT School

Abstract

Owing to the significance of 21st-century education, students need to be ready with specific essential skills and competence. Moreover, Thailand is moving forward to Thailand 4.0 in which technology plays a vital role in this transition. In an educational context, students' learning has struggled in the existing curriculums. Students learn each subject independently, while the learning activity does not promote them for innovative and critical thinking; meanwhile, the assignments/projects have not emerged from the industrial application. Furthermore, the instruction of each subject does not present the relationship between them; therefore, the students could not integrate what they learned to construct innovation meaningfully. Based on this perspective, this study endeavor to propose an integrated learning framework for faculty/school of IT to promote students' constructionism, innovative thinking, and 21st-century skills that relate to modern industry. The proposed program designed to integrate instruction and learning across IT disciplines where students could develop novel ideas in the meantime. Industrial issues are used to drive the instructional design and learning activities. Consequently, more meaningful learning and assessment can be improved, while the students' essential skills are equipped. To validate the proposed framework, a focus group with strongly-relevant experts has been conducted online. The findings show the model has been highly accepted on computer disciplines and industrial applications, pedagogy and learning activities, assessments and 21st-century skills dimensions. Moreover, the experts have pointed out that the proposed model not only help preparing the students in IT disciplines for Thailand 4.0 industry but also help utilizing faculty resource effectively.