Korea University of Energy and Technology Successfully Establishes Various Educational Innovation Experiments

Project-Based Classes and Triple Guidance... Strict Exclusion of One-Way Lectures

Second Semester Enrollment at 97.2%, 'Top Level in Korea'... Various Competition Awards

Korea University of Energy and Technology (President Yoon Euijun, KENTECH) announced on the 31st that various educational innovation experiments conducted over three semesters since its establishment under the value of being a "university unlike any other in the world" have successfully taken root.

It explained that the second-semester enrollment rate of the second batch of students who entered last March reached 97.2%, which is "the highest level in the country."

KENTECH was established with the goal of nurturing "global energy leaders" and opened in March last year.

The university is achieving good results by promoting various "educational innovation experiments" that almost no other universities attempt, such as a self-designed curriculum where students design their own major courses, project-based learning (PBL), AI classrooms, Triple Advising (professor triple guidance), and Minerva education.

KENTECH developed a PBL class model where professors and students collaboratively decide the course content and then carry out field-centered problem-solving projects, applying it for the first time in Korea to all grades and all subjects. One-way lecture-style classes were thoroughly excluded.

To this end, all classrooms were stripped of blackboards, and an AI-based Active Learning Classroom (ALC) optimized for team projects was developed and applied. The ALC received the Best Development Award and Research Award from the American Educational Technology Association, and student team project results conducted in the ALC have been winning awards at national competitions one after another.

Examples of awards won by KENTECH students through PBL projects include four awards in the first half of this year alone: the "Excellent Academic Paper Award" from the Korean Hydrogen and New Energy Society, the "Excellent Paper Award" from the Korean Renewable Energy Society, the "Poster Excellence Award" from the Korean Industrial Applied Mathematics Society, and the "Grand Prize and Excellence Award" in the University Carbon Neutral Challenge. It is significant that first- and second-year undergraduate students competed with graduate students and won these awards.

Second-year student Park Subin said, "During class, at the suggestion of student Choi Seonwoo, three of us started a project to separate solar panels and found a way to separate them easily at low cost by applying process theory, etc. After winning the grand prize in the Carbon Neutral Challenge, we are now working on economic feasibility verification."

Kim Kyung, Director of the Educational Innovation Center, explained, "KENTECH's self-designed energy major Visionary Course (VC) model, PBL class model where students identify problems and propose solutions, and the undergraduate research student system starting from the first year are creating synergy effects that lead to awards."

Student satisfaction with the innovative teaching methods is very high. After the first semester, a satisfaction survey of students showed that "problem-solving field-centered education" scored 8.8 out of 10, "self-directed learning" 8.8, "teamwork and communication" 8.9, and "learner-centered class design" 8.7.

“Triple Advising,” where three professors provide counseling on concerns, career, and major for each student, has also become a unique strength of KENTECH.

According to the school's statistics, during the first semester this year, the average number of professor meetings per student reached six, and 77% of these meetings took place outside regular working hours, such as evenings or holidays.

Kim Eunjeong, Director of the RC Education Center, said, "Because professors are busy during working hours, meetings mostly happen in the evenings or on holidays. Through these meetings, students come to trust professors, and professors open paths for students. The 97.2% second-semester enrollment rate of the second batch is because concerns and questions are promptly resolved through these meetings."

First-year student Park Seohyun had 60 individual meetings with 25 professors during the first semester and attended a three-week entrepreneurship training at UC Berkeley in the U.S. during summer vacation. During the training, he conducted 54 preliminary customer interviews in San Francisco. He said, "Since school classes are conducted in English, English interviews were not difficult."

KENTECH's educational innovation begins with a creativity interview. When selecting freshmen, KENTECH gives a creativity problem to solve within 35 minutes, followed by a 25-minute interview to evaluate creativity.

Professor Kim Heetae said, "Because we select students who are creative and proactive, they ask many questions and actively participate in discussions during class."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.