Mapua president has his mind on the future
Recently, the university started offering six fully online degrees: Computer Science, Information Technology, Industrial Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electronics Engineering and Electrical Engineering
Mapua University is known as a top information technology and engineering school in the country. Yet even its expertise in fields that have been crucial to survival in a pandemic, the university had to go through the same experience as many learning institutions when the coronavirus disease began to spread early this year. It was forced to adapt to the limitations imposed by the global health crisis.
Face-to-face classes have been suspended until now, six months after the first quarantine was put into effect in the capital in March.
Of course, the research-oriented institution founded in 1925 by its namesake Tomas Mapua, the first registered Filipino architect, is adapting well to the situation.
“When COVID-19 happened, we had to shift to online rather quickly and we had to forget about face-to-face like everyone else and ramp up the production of electronic materials to accommodate a fully online mode of delivery. We were just surprised as everyone else but our transition had rather been smooth, I would say,” said Dr. Reynaldo Vea, Mapua president.
Dr. Vea sat down with Pairfect, the Daily Tribune’s Wednesday show that features movers and shakers of industries. He shared the latest about Mapua and gave a glimpse of his impressive scholastic achievements that helped shape him to be a leader of the academe.
Prepared since 2012
“We were also caught by surprise like everyone else but I would say maybe we were a little bit better prepared to transition because we’ve been doing digital education or online education since 2012,” he said.
The university had been using an open learning management system (LMS), a tool most educational institutions employ for online classes. In 2017, it subscribed to an “industrial-strength LMS” and, prior to the pandemic, they were almost “100 percent on blended learning mode,” which combines elements of online education with face-to-face or in-person education.
As a university situated in the National Capital Region where rains or thunderstorms could flood the streets for days, Mapua had also put into place systems that make it easier for their students to cope with learning without battling it out with these man-made (horrible traffic) and natural calamities (flooding and typhoons), as well as important national events as the annual Black Nazarene procession, with the main school located in Intramuros, and hosting of international events such as the ASEAN Summit and SEA Games in 2019.
Whenever these occur, they observe “Digital Day” or “Digital Rush” where classes are held online on the same timetable of a regular school day.
“For example, during the primetime, from 7:30 to 12 noon, we hold classes synchronously, simultaneously and massively with 75 classes going on at the same time involving 4,000 students. That’s the capability of our LMS and of our faculty members. And we also have a version called the Digital Rush where during the rush hour sessions at 7:30 to 9 in the morning to quarter to 6 in the evening, we offer our students the option of choosing a section of a particular course that is fully online so they don’t have to battle it out with the Manila traffic,” Dr. Vea explained. Recently, the university started offering six fully online degrees: Computer Science, Information Technology, Industrial Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electronics Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Students who are enrolled in these programs do not only get a Mapua diploma but also microcredentials from their host providers from universities abroad. These programs do not need “wet laboratories.” Instead, students are sent materials which they can assemble from their homes. The finished products can be sent back for evaluation and grading.
Mindful learning
Aside from investing on their infrastructure, the school has also valued the welfare of its community, particularly its mental well-being. It has subscribed to online counseling services where students can consult anytime. It also works on being active on social media with many of its student organizations putting its presence and inspirational works for free viewing and use for entertainment.
Dr. Vea said they are “looking to hold some online activity for Christmas” and is set to give the students “one-week breaks” sometime during this term.
“We are mindful that these are very stressful times of everybody. We try to find ways to ease it up a little bit on our academics to the extent that we think is necessary,” he explained.
Not only do the students need to adjust, but the teachers as well because the shift, he said, has now gone from teacher-centered to learner-centered, outcomes-based education.
It had been available for quite some time but the pandemic has made blended learning more preferable as the students of today are “digital natives” — born in the midst of a rapidly developing, technologically advancing world.
Teachers and educators today need not only be able to give lessons the “Socratic way” but also an “experiential” — one in which face-to-face instruction is complemented by easier methods such as gamification of lessons.
10,000 hours
Dr. Vea joined Mapua in 2000 when it was sold to the Yuchengco Group of Companies. Previously he was the dean of the College of Engineering at the University of the Philippines (UP).
He said that he had always seen himself as an educator. His mother was the head of the Humanities department at his alma mater, the Philippine Science High School (Pisay). His father used to teach in Bataan after World War II but later became an agriculturist for the government.
The young Vea’s scholastic record is quite impressive. He was the first valedictorian of Pisay, graduated magna cum laude from UP, took a master’s degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a doctorate degree in Engineering as a Fulbright-Hays scholar at the University of California at Berkeley. He was also the editor-in-chief of UP’s school paper, the Philippine
Collegian.
What’s his advice to learners and students? “I didn’t expect to say this because they’ve been saying this a lot in high school, which is ‘Study hard,’” he said. “And even when I went to school at MIT, you know that’s a place where they say that getting an education is like getting a drink from a fireman’s hose, and it’s true. You cannot imbibe all of it. But also, they say in that place, a lot of success as a student would depend on how much effort you put into it. So it cannot be native to anyone to just pick up everything like that. You have to exert effort.”
What entails effort then? He cites Malcolm Gladwell’s golden 10,000-hour rule written in his book Outliers: The Story of Success.
“Didn’t The Beatles play for 10,000 hours in a humble club before they became great? I’m not saying I became great but I try to put in many, many hours in whatever work I’ve landed with. That’s it. So, maybe work hard. It’s the same as study hard,” he said.