"Learning involves tackling problems, projects, or challenges, not consuming content"

On 12 June, Juan Freire, biologist, university professor and entrepreneur, was one of the featured speakers at #UOC2TheFuture, the UOC event dedicated to sharing and discussing technological innovation and online learning. Freire, who was one of the founders of TeamLabs, has led the digital transformation of Tecnológico de Monterrey (TEC) in Mexico and is a key figure in new forms of learning. In this interview, he shares his vision for the present and future of online learning and the conditions for greater innovation and creativity in institutions.

What have been the most challenging goals in your career in recent years?

Since leaving my academic post, my greatest challenge has been to launch projects that truly have the capacity to change reality and have an impact on the field in which they are developed.

What skills do you see as necessary to work in these new environments?

Leadership is one of the key tools, from the perspective of knowing how to listen and make sense of a wide range of points of view and people who are building something together. Another is the methodologies that come from the world of design and digital technology, because they allow you to adopt a flexible, experimental and evidence-based approach that allows you to move forward. Coming from the scientific world, I find this very logical, because it is nothing more than taking the world of experimentation and scientific research to another context.

In an interview, you mentioned that working at the university made you feel as if your wings had been clipped. How should universities change to prevent this from happening?

My frustration with the university had to do with the fact that the objectives of my projects weren't aligned with those of the institution, and I chose to leave. Without wishing to generalize, I think that universities often pigeonhole the work of researchers. The aim is to produce knowledge through papers, which is a very fine thing, but it's just one way to make an impact. I agree that universities should generate knowledge, but not only through papers.

What other avenues do you propose?

Projects carried out with society that have a local impact. Educational innovation itself can also have an impact, something that universities did not consider until recently. Education was an assembly line, executing a pre-established plan. For me, this is very restrictive and I think it needs to be broken. I left when the hyper-bureaucratization of the university and the world of indicators were beginning. This is another huge problem in an organization that contains people who should be given significant autonomy to pursue their interests.

What does educational innovation mean to you?

Innovation is creating something new that meets a goal and solves a problem. In the field of learning, educational innovation is how you improve the way people learn, and it has multiple dimensions. It is very necessary because, when the needs of the person who wants to learn change, you have to change the way they learn. For me, innovation is not something that makes us look modern or an end in itself. It's a way of working that allows you to provide people with value.

What lessons have you learned from the institutions you've worked with in recent years, and which do you think could be applied to organizations like the UOC, for example?

The need for effective leadership in institutions, which is not always the case in universities. People who have vision, who know where they're going, who create the conditions for things to happen, and who are committed to change. It's very easy to present a vision, but then leave the community alone to carry out the process; that doesn't work. Then, understanding that a process of change is painful, in every sense: we shouldn't try to avoid the pain, but people must be supported through it. There is also the financial perspective. Changes are often proposed but resources are not assigned to them, because they are committed to other things. On a more technical level, the importance of technology and how poorly it is used in universities today.

At Monterrey TEC there was a significant change in the model. Based on your experience, what do you think a university that wants to evolve needs to take into account?

The first thing is to be clear about why you want to change and what you want to change. Once you are sure about that, I believe in clear leadership, which gives the agents of change considerable autonomy and freedom, sets a course and takes care to make resources available and have the right talent.

How do you see the overall university landscape and what experiences would you identify as most interesting?

I see interesting things happening, both negative and positive. I think the world of rankings adds little value and it has had a very perverse effect; perhaps they have brought order, but what they have done is steer universities toward objectives that were not their own. Many universities have lost their way; they do things to appear in the ranking, not because it's part of their mission. In Spain, I'm very surprised by the lack of diversity in universities; all of them, better or worse, are the same. To me, this seems to be a systemic problem, despite the fact that there are people doing wonderful things and very good universities. This contrasts with my experience in Latin America, which is the complete opposite, a world of chaos and diversity within which there are very interesting models: models that are very much geared to particular regions; to education and research; to connections and relationships with society, for example. 

Do you think we can learn from what's happening in Latin America?

I find this diversity interesting and I think we can learn a lot from that world. Then there are many universities that aren't on people's radar, that are new and do things differently, like Minerva University or Ollin College in Boston, with models that wouldn't be possible in Spain. I find that fascinating, models that don't try to replicate the standard, but contribute their own value proposition.

What is your vision for the future of online learning?

Online learning is in its prehistory, because it began by replicating the classroom experience and has often led us to passive learning, focusing on content and often on synchronicity. For me, its future is an active learning experience, with many different forms, successfully combining the synchronicity provided by online and in-person learning with a high degree of flexibility. To do this, we need to review our pedagogical models and rethink the technology that supports these processes. I wouldn't talk about online learning, I would just talk about learning, because we are moving towards a future where learning has a digital dimension just like our lives.

In-person learning will become the anomaly. It will continue to exist because it's great at a certain stage in life, the idea of going to a campus because it helps with personal development... but it will be for a minority of cases. Most people will be immersed in digital learning processes, with a roadmap offered by the institution that can be adapted to their goals. Learning involves tackling problems, projects, or challenges, not consuming content, which is what happens now. It is about reaching knowledge through practice: it is a very effective model and is the way to generate engagement.

How can a culture of innovation be fostered within institutions?

A culture of innovation within institutions must be fostered by creating incentives, and they need not be solely financial. Helping innovation happen by creating the context, providing resources, tools and support, and then recognizing the effort involved in innovation. There are ways to recognize innovation that don't have to be linked exclusively to the end product. If you link it to the end product, it will cease to be innovation, because people will worry about making sure things go well and then they will take fewer risks.

How do you think talent and creativity should be fostered among teaching staff and technical teams at the university?

I think it involves creating appropriate incentives, diversifying the objectives by which we measure people, encouraging people to dare to innovate, and allowing for error, which isn't negative, but positive if it translates into knowledge and experience that you can transfer. There's a lot of anxiety among teaching staff right now. They're exhausted from successive technological changes that seem to be overwhelming them and in which they play no part. We need to create an environment of safety and trust, where teachers can learn by experimenting and develop truly innovative ideas.

How do you think innovation projects in universities can be made sustainable?

These projects are usually seen as a drain on resources, an expense. For me they are not an expense, they are an investment. Innovation should be linked to future benefits. There are benefits in terms of generating impact and financial stability. They are both important.

You were one of the creators of the TeamLabs model. How is your model different and what does it offer?

It's an organization that was founded in 2012, working with Mondragon University. We launched Team Academy, an entrepreneurship learning model that originated in Finland. It is based on learning to take on entrepreneurial projects as a team. It is rooted in the hypothesis that the best way to learn to learn is through entrepreneurship. You don't create entrepreneurs from theory, but from action. And you need the team dimension. From this starting point, a pedagogical model was developed that was very different from the conventional one. They are academic programmes but, on the first day, a group of people create a real company, and their entire learning process is based on the entrepreneurial projects that company develops. The projects become more complex over time and a team coach provides ongoing guidance and support.

What is the concept of “radical learning”?

For me, it's when you turn all your life experience into an opportunity for learning. It's almost a state of mind in which you open yourself up to experimenting and living experiences that allow you to learn, even changing your concepts of the world. It has a lot to do with critical thinking; you're willing to understand the world and intervene in it to try to change it, knowing that it will change you.

Do you think universities have found a satisfactory way to interact with the world of work?

I don't think so, because they still follow that paradigm of "I generate knowledge and I transfer it to you." It seems to work because it leads to a dialogue, but it is not a productive dialogue. Universities need to engage with the world of work, but to co-produce or co-design the knowledge and learning practices that are needed. And that means deeply understanding needs and co-designing solutions. This is why university research has less impact on society than it should have because they don't go out and engage with society to understand the complexity of a problem and don't create the solution jointly with society.

What influence do you think big technology companies will have on education?

Big Tech is already having a major impact and I think it is negative. It appears to supply technology that provides support, but this technology actually has its own pedagogical ideology; it necessarily incorporates a pedagogical model. The second point is that data are fundamental today. Much of that data returns to platforms that allow them to improve their products, but not the learning experience, which ends up being a side effect of a business model. I don't think it makes much sense, and it's not about demonizing big companies; the problem is having your own model and, from there, deciding how you use technology.

Do you think geopolitical upheavals will impact universities, such as those in the United States with Donald Trump?

The current upheavals in the university world, primarily in the United States because of the Trump effect, are already having an impact. It may be small as yet, but many things are already changing. Also, if you have a system like the university system, which has so much inertia, that's designed for stability, and you subject it to a shock, it moves and does not recover, or recovers very slowly. The American elite university model is a very specific one. People look at these great universities and believe all universities should aspire to be like that, but most of them lose their way and cease to be what they should be. In this system there has been a crisis around freedom of expression for years and now we are seeing a sudden change in the opposite direction. I don't know what will happen, but it should make us reflect on the autonomy universities need, so that they can be spaces for freedom of opinion and thought.

If you could convey just one message to the UOC community, what would it be?

The UOC was set up as an anomaly in the system; it's different, with a defined mission that has evolved over time, distancing it from the mainstream of the university system. For me, that's a huge opportunity because it was created without the inertia of universities that have been around longer. In many ways, it was born in the future, and that allows the UOC, or indeed forces it, to define its own mission in many aspects, and I think that's what's happening. For me, the message would be to trust in that mission and try to create that community of innovation and learning, because I believe it's a university that's on the right path thanks to all those unique features that make it strong and designed for the world we live in today.