Understanding the gut microbiota is crucial due to its profound impact on human health, influencing digestion, immune regulation, and disease prevention. Its interdisciplinary nature makes it a critical area of study in various fields, including biotechnology engineering, where teaching students about its complexity and real-world applications is essential. Despite its importance, gut microbiota remains underrepresented in educational curricula, limiting students' ability to grasp its complexity and practical implications. To address this gap, an interactive virtual reality tool called the Gut Microbiota Simulator (GMS) was developed, allowing students to explore the effects of lifestyle factors, such as diet, sleep, and stress, on gut health by simulating dynamic changes and providing an engaging, interactive learning environment. The simulator was evaluated in an undergraduate course through pre-tests, post-tests, and a perception survey to assess its effectiveness. Results showed a significant improvement in students' understanding of microbiota-related concepts, with post-test scores significantly higher than pre-test scores (p < 0.001). The perception survey revealed high satisfaction levels, with average ratings exceeding nine on a 10-point scale for dimensions such as usefulness, engagement, and learning relevance. In addition, an AI-based microbiota simulator powered by a custom GPT model was developed as a complementary resource to provide personalized feedback and flexible interaction scenarios. These tools demonstrate the potential of integrating virtual reality and artificial intelligence to address complex educational challenges, fostering critical thinking and problem-solving skills in students. This study highlights the importance of using innovative technologies to improve the teaching of interdisciplinary topics. Future work will explore adapting these tools to other disciplines and educational contexts, promoting accessible and impactful learning experiences.

Competency-based education has had very active development in recent years. Different educational models, based on projects, problems, and practices, have been used in Engineering faculties to develop the graduate competencies of new engineers. However, the didactic technique of Challenge Based Learning (CBL) has been the one that has recently had not only the greatest acceptance but also the greatest success in the labor market. For this model, the design of the challenges is fundamental, and the role of training partners, especially external ones, companies, non-governmental organizations, or government institutions that provide, together with teachers. These challenges have the purpose of developing different types of skills. In this report, we analyze the role of these training partners in developing, evaluating, and applying both, technical and soft skills in real environments of the current labor market. Students who participate in this CBL fully developed competencies. CBL is very demanding for universities, professors and students.

Ingenuity and curiosity are characteristics that define engineers. The need to understand the world and how things work is vital to be motivated to innovate, create, and transform the world that surrounds us. Universities have the responsibility and commitment to prepare engineering professionals to be able to face the challenges of our rapidly changing world by preparing them with a set of competencies (knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and values). These competencies include both disciplinary and transversal competencies, such as critical thinking, the ability to solve complex problems, communication, the ability to learn by themselves, and creating innovative solutions with consideration of global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors. This study presents the engagement of undergraduate engineering students in research work through active learning during their capstone project at their last semester of their undergraduate program. Students from Industrial and Systems Engineering, Mechatronics Engineering, and Sustainable Development Engineering programs worked on research projects linked with external partners. The study presents how these projects were generated and planned, the projects characteristics, the projects results, and the impact this research experience had on the students. The research projects delivered the desired outcomes and provided students with a valuable learning experience, showing them their potential, and motivating them to pursue postgraduate studies and innovation and development professional roles.

This study delves into the exploration of emotional intelligence among college graduates by comparing two educational models: the traditional approach and the competency-based framework. The research focused on analyzing the impact of these models on the development of emotional intelligence in graduates and their subsequent success in post-university life. Throughout a Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) we measure students' ability to perceive, understand, use, and manage their emotions. The findings revealed that the competency-based educational model, emphasizing problem-solving skills, significantly reduces the variability in outcomes. Consequently, this approach fosters a more homogeneous enhancement of emotional intelligence among students. The results suggest that competency-based model provides a more effective platform for nurturing emotional intelligence, ensuring a more uniformly developed skill set among graduates as they transition into the professional world.

Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a teaching technique that has recently been used for the development of disciplinary and transversal skills. It has the advantage of being a realistic experience that can be socially relevant and develops in students competencies currently required by employers. Searching in the SCOPUS database on the CBL experiences reported, at least until October 2023, 22% are in Engineering Education, especially in the last 4 years. In this communication, 112 CBL experiences in the School of Engineering and Sciences at the Tecnologico de Monterrey, in Mexico, were examined with reference to the design of challenges. Regardless of the origin of the challenge (university professors, training partner, mix of external experts with professors), or of the applicators, (teachers or experts of the training partner), the challenges pedagogically met the objectives of developing competencies, but none passed an evaluation on ethical, legal or certifying feasibility that the process or results could generate some social or academic inconvenience. Here we propose a reflection on the central structure of the CBL, the challenge, the relevance of its application, and the design of the challenge itself. CBL is a powerful pedagogical approach for the development of skills for the future, but care must be taken in planning so as not to commit ethical or legal infringements that compromise the development of the educational experience.

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) connects students and professors from different countries, universities, cultures, and educational models to engage in projects and coursework, working together for a common goal. By implementing this collaboration in courses that are part of the engineering program study plan, both students and faculty develop different disciplinary and transversal competencies while learning the knowledge and skills required for their specific engineering programs. In the context of engineering education, program accreditations are quite relevant to ensure the standards and quality to develop graduates that are well prepared to enter the global workforce and contribute to build a better world. This study analyzes the student outcomes of different engineering accreditation organizations to identify common student outcomes and explore the impact of COIL experiences to contribute to the development of these student outcomes. Some COIL experiences in literature report that students build communication skills, work in multicultural environments creating consciousness about different social, economic and political contexts, develop critical thinking and problem-solving competencies while proposing solutions to complex problems, among others. This study aims to investigate how COIL courses align to the development of engineering student outcomes and document COIL as a tool for this purpose, emphasizing best practices and recommendations for universities that intend to engage in this pedagogical approach.

The new reality demands that engineering graduates develop digital skills. Furthermore, globalization requires university students to develop global perspectives and cultural awareness to become responsible and sustainable global citizens. One of the most popular strategies in recent years, mainly due to the confinement by COVID-19, was the strategy of Collaborative Online International Learning (Collaborative Online International Learning, COIL). COIL is a voluntary association between teachers from different countries collaborating in co-constructed learning experiences to enhance international and intercultural understanding. The analysis of 10 COIL experiences between Tecnologico de Monterrey and other universities worldwide was conducted based on evaluating and developing student competencies. The students' satisfaction level has been high. Results suggest that COIL helps them to develop skills to navigate the challenges of the 21stcentury, giving them new perspectives and ways of thinking about how they relate to the world. Detected opportunity areas were specific preparation of teachers, evaluation systems, instructional design, and the assignment of digital badges to participating teachers. COIL is a powerful tool for developing the engineering skills that employers demand.

The purpose of this study is to explore how a high-impact outreach project with renowned international organizations contributes to the development of students' self-confidence and leadership in STEM areas. The conclusion of this research, using quantitative measures, yielded outstanding results in two skills expected to develop working on projects related to STEM. In addition, other solid results showed that students who develop this type of projects increase the perspective of their professional approach and they inspire students to continue participating in projects that challenge them both personally and professionally.

In August 2019, the national initiative Women in Engineering and Sciences (MIC) was launched with the objective of raising awareness and monitoring gender equity, equal opportunities and women empowerment. This project, led by a group of professors, hopes to accompany, support and join efforts, for a stronger impact within our academic community. This study presents the work of the linking committee towards the empowerment of women engineers through linked experiences. The methodology of this work includes: 1) integrating a multi-campus team to work in the engagement and linking committee, 2) identifying internal efforts towards the empowerment of women, as well as external efforts in companies, organizations and other universities through research and interviews, and mapping the networking ecosystem 3) analyze the information to identify key partners for collaborative projects, and 4) create a community by implementing Lean In circles (leanin.org) and replicate the project at other campuses. The work done and the reflections hope to be a roadmap and source of inspiration to other engineering institutions working towards a culture of gender equality and women empowerment.

Gender equity and inclusion have been relevant topics in the agenda of the companies, organizations and universities. As a university and particularly with engineering, science and technology programs, it is relevant to implement actions that encourage this culture of gender equity in a STEM environment. The main initiatives are related to mentoring programs, which seek to develop and empower women through women themselves. The research aims to identify the factors that influence the impact generated by the mentoring process in the different stakeholders: teachers, researchers and high school students. The mentoring model is composed of three key elements: (a) massive session with life testimonies of engineering and science students, (b) massive session with the testimonies of mentors and mentees, and (c) the mentoring sessions in small groups or one-to-one. The methodology is of a mixed nature and is composed of 4 stages: (1)design of the mentoring program based on the research of literature review and interviews with companies that has experience in mentoring programs, (2) implementation of the mentoring program with high school students and women STEM professors mentors, (3) evaluation of the impact of the program with interviews with mentors, observation, focus groups with mentors and mentees, and surveys, (4) definition of the impact factors and improvement areas of the program. The findings in the different stages allowed to integrate the factors that impact the mentoring process and its involved stakeholders. Some of the factors that influence the impact of the mentoring program are: the role of the mentor and its characteristics, the mentee profile, its commitments and interests, the impact of the life testimony both professional and personal, the type of needs that arise for the mentees and for the mentors, the time of attention, and the interaction.

The Tecnologico de Monterrey (ITESM) has implemented the Tec21 Educational Model, based on four fundamental pillars: challenge-based learning (CBL), flexibility, inspiring trained teachers and a comprehensive educational experience that makes it memorable. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the results of the exercises on the implementation of CBL experiences in three engineering areas within the campus: mechatronics, mechanical and biotechnology. First, the transformation of teachers to adopt CBL as a didactic technique is described, and secondly, the implementation of CBL experiences with external training partners. Results here presented indicate that students gain more knowledge using CBL, however, teachers require an appropriate training program and a prior design of proficiency assessment instruments. When testing different evaluation instruments, the most objective and clear for CBL according to the surveys between teachers and students were the checklists and the evaluation rubrics. This study indicates that through experience we approach to create an increasingly adequate, transparent and fair evaluation system to evaluate CBL experiences.

This study tries to explore the coincident steps in how to engage students in research among engineering and business courses. At the qualitative part of the study seven steps were found to be coincident. The quantitative part showed the excellent results in the research and learning outcomes. It can be said that students learning experience was motivating and positively described by them; their confidence towards making research was also increased and the entire curricula of the course, covered.