EDUCATIONAL PROJECT USING THE ITM’s TOOLBOX: ENGINEERING FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY

Objective: The purpose of this work is to implement an educational methodology from the Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano (ITM) Toolbox, to achieve in Electronic Technology students, the appropriation of soft skills to solve social problems from applied engineering in favour of a sustainable society. Theoretical framework: The Toolbox to develop the international profile of students proposed, for the development of the methodology, the tool "Global Profile Competencies" that was selected, which states that for the development of a student's global profile, soft skills and professional skills must be covered. Method: The methodology contemplates six phases that are developed throughout a semester, the first three phases require six classes of a subject, the rest of the phases require partially directed independent work time. A comparison is made of the group intervened with the methodology against a group of similar conditions from the immediately previous year, and a comparison between the projects presented in the same year by students from other groups who were not intervened. Results and conclusion: The effectiveness of the methodology is verified by ensuring that all the students of the intervened group focus their projects on the proposed orientation and are recognized by the juries of a Sample of Classroom Projects. Implications of the research: In the first stage of application of the tool, generic and specific competences were chosen. The soft skills selected: Commitment to its socio-cultural environment, Social Responsibility and Citizen Commitment, as the necessary framework to establish the Engineering for a Sustainable Society methodology. Originality: In the context of sustainability, this work sought the appropriation of soft skills typical of the global engineer in the students of Electronics Technology of the ITM as part of their training.


INTRODUCTION
The engineers that are needed today must be able to interact in a sociocultural environment that is constantly changing, and international regulations are designed to train them capable of analyzing and evaluating the solution of engineering problems and hold them accountable for the results obtained (Galanina et al., 2015;Linh et al., 2023;López et al., 2021;Martseva et al., 2021;Rivera et al., 2020).The competency approach recognizes the need for schoolwork to be oriented towards solving problems in the environment that each subject lives (Alm et al., 2022;Berlian & Huda, 2022;Díaz-Barriga, 2011).UNESCO raises the importance of intercultural competencies obtained through the combination of experience, academic training and self-reflection, and affirms that there is no better way to discover the socially constructed nature than to be faced with another culture that has different thoughts (Basilotta-Gómez-Pablos et al., 2022;Calle-Ramírez et al., 2023;Leeds-Hurwitz, 2013).In the Tuning Project, the competences of university students are classified as generic and specific, the generic competencies being shared by almost all degrees and having great importance in today's world, among them social responsibility, citizen commitment and commitment stand out with their socio-cultural environment, then it can be stated that engineers must be prepared to offer technically feasible solutions, considering restrictions of an economic, social and environmental nature (Baptiste et al., 2022;Beneitone et al., 2007;García-álvarez et al., 2022;Kim & Coonan, 2023).So, the destination of Higher Education is to train people with competencies that are consistent with society, the environment and the specific actions of each knowledge; For this reason, the evaluation of training results should not be done by the amount of knowledge acquired, but by the ability to think and solve professional problems based on social experience (Brightwell & Grant, 2013;Gomez-del Rio & Rodriguez, 2022;Sharipovich, 2022).
On the other hand, the concept of sustainable development is associated with the concern for the existing link between social development and its effects on the natural environment given the magnitude and extent reached by it, which led to an assessment of its future consequences, making It is necessary to establish if a society is depending on its own resources, or if it is using resources greater than its endowment to determine if said society is sustainable (Garea Moreda et al., 2017); and taking into account that one of the objectives of engineering is to satisfy the needs of users and increase their quality of life (Grum & Kobal Grum, 2020;Litvinenko et al., 2022;Reséndiz Núñez, 2008), the ITM developed the methodology: Engineering for People that establishes the importance of the elaboration of artifacts to meet these needs through human-centered design practices, making it necessary to monitor the impacted community regarding the operation and appropriation of the applied technology, in order to be able to improve and scale it to other communities (Yepes et al., 2018); In this context of sustainability, and based on the experience of Engineering for People, this work sought the appropriation of soft skills typical of the global engineer in the students of Electronics Technology of the ITM as part of their training so that they strengthen their competence in solve social problems from applied engineering in favor of a sustainable society.The research question was: If we compare the performance results in the sample of classroom projects of a group intervened with the "Global Profile Competences" tool, in which the development of transversal competences is promoted by assimilating the incidence of their project in achieving sustainable development objectives, could they be better than those of a non-intervened group, where students develop their project and participate in the sample without any justification other than a grade and without introspecting the social scope that have their job?

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The Metropolitan Technological Institute (ITM) at the head of the Directorate of Cooperation and International Relations (DCRI) designed the Toolbox to develop the international profile of its students and proposed a range of proposals among which, for the development of the methodology that It will be presented, the tool "Global Profile Competencies" was selected, which states that for the development of a student's global profile, soft skills and professional skills must be covered, and establishes a procedure that consists of three stages: 1. Inquire about the skills the general global profile and the discipline; 2. Define the skills to be developed; 3. Plan the development of the competence, that is, the learning result, methodology and evaluation (Aponte G., 2018), and finally, they propose the evaluation rubric to determine the scope of the competences by the students (see Table 1).The Engineering for People methodology (Yepes et al., 2018) carried out the tracking and identification of appropriate soft skills for the ITM engineering student, trying to unify criteria to establish the main ones, and, taking into account the Project classification Tuning in generic and specific competences, affirm that generic competences are shared by almost all degrees and are those that refer to continuing learning, good behavior in society, commitment to the socio-cultural environment, among others.In addition, they specify that engineering training implies teaching-learning strategies towards the formulation and execution of projects with social impact.This case report establishes the importance of pedagogy oriented to the solution of social problems in the training of the engineer, for this pedagogy approaches are reviewed, and methodological experiences of the authors are presented in the development of the strategy.
Then, in the first stage of application of the tool, generic and specific competences were chosen.Giving continuity to the Engineering for People methodology, the soft skills are selected: Commitment to its socio-cultural environment, Social Responsibility and Citizen Commitment as the necessary framework to establish the Engineering for a Sustainable Society methodology.And, due to professional competence in the engineer, two large dimensions were covered: The technical dimension that contemplates the intrinsic knowledge and skills of Technology in Electronics, and the ethical dimension that includes the human aspect in terms of attitudes and values (Molina A., 2000).For this, the new curricular grid of the ITM Electronics program was analyzed, obtained from the professional and occupational profile of technologists and engineers who define in parallel the professional competencies composed of generic and specific competencies.In the microcurriculum of each subject that make up the curriculum, their contribution to the achievement of each of these competencies will be explicit.Table 2 shows these competences, where the component of interculturality and social and citizen commitment are highlighted.

Specific competences
The student can identify the critical variables that intervene in an industrial production process; design and implement the process of measurement and reading of variables in accordance with the need for the process demanded by an industrial organization.

UC2
The student can identify problems and opportunities in the social and industrial environment, evaluate, propose, and implement technological solutions to support the decision-making process on technological management and integration of technologies related to measurement instrumentation and control systems automatic, programmable devices and embedded systems.

UC3
The student can actively participate in work groups in R&D and research making use of assertive communication, critical thinking, and commitment to contribute to the achievement of the proposed objectives, acting under ethical and sustainability criteria with social responsibility and environmental.

UC4
The student can integrate sustainable development to the management of companies, projects and technological initiatives from systemic thinking, anticipation, regulations, strategy, and responsibility with present and future generations.

UC5 Generic competences
The student can work proactively as part of a multidisciplinary, self-regulated, collaborative, and inclusive team, to read the needs and opportunities in the intervention of local and global problems, with an effort to achieve the collective good.

UC6
The student can support research projects, classify, analyze and interpret information, in order to transform it into new knowledge as a fundamental pillar of a society in a global world.

UC7
The student can adapt and adapt knowledge and solutions to different social and cultural contexts, contributing to respect, understanding and solidarity between diverse individuals and groups.Source: Own source.
Then, to complete the first stage of implementation of the tool, it was proposed to implement the methodology during Programmable Logic Controllers of Technology in Electronics given their own competencies, there the students were proposed to carry out an integrative project to present in the Sample of Classroom Projects within the framework of the ITM Engineering Week -SII2019, seeking that the jurors of the event contribute their opinion in the evaluation of the methodology.This event generates the participation of students from all the undergraduate programs in Technologies and Engineering.
The Classroom Projects Sample is a project-based learning strategy that has been developed since 2009 to strengthen competency training in the ITM Faculty of Engineering and that was previously published seeking to serve as an example for its generalized application (Ardila et al., 2020).

METHODS
The "Global Profile Competencies" tool is made up of a series of theoretical-practical contents to mediate teaching and learning, this guides the teacher to develop in their students the competencies that reinforce the international profile.Being consistent with the motto of Engineering Week 2019, the theme of "Engineering for a sustainable society" was adopted and the six stages for the development of the methodology presented in this article were defined:

Stage 1: Awareness
Stage that consists of sharing with the students a clear position on the project, where the teacher must always show a firm position and a conviction of the proposed proposal and the expected results.
• Class 1: Reading -Engineering for a sustainable society.
The introductory text of this article is presented to the students.With the aim of contextualizing students with what has been raised by world bodies about the reason for being of the engineer.It is only a matter of perceiving the reaction of the students to the text and expanding the information that may be necessary, always considering the policies of the Institution, the training profiles and the internationalization tools of the curriculum.Students are asked to have a discussion outside of class with their classmates and take the most relevant notes to be discussed in the next class.Additionally, the video on "Gandhian Engineering: Innovative designs for low-cost products" is presented, presented by Engineer R.A. Masheelkar, in order to bring into context, the projects that are being carried out in India, whose central idea is to realize low-cost engineering solutions in order to reach people who cannot benefit from the engineering solutions of large companies.Students should consider appreciation for the video and other materials they find for the next class discussion.
A discussion is held with the students of the introduction of this article, based on the notes taken in the meeting with their classmates and considering the support materials that were presented in the classroom or that they found on the subject.This part aims to unify criteria and resolve doubts about the social function of the engineer in society.In addition to this, they are presented with a list of sustainable projects carried out worldwide.Projects and proposals at local and international level related to sustainability and solution of social problems from 6 applied engineering, information to be used as brainstorming for students to discuss in their work teams with a view to presenting the project at Engineering Week ITM 2019.

Stage 2: Definition of Problems and Possible Solutions
The work groups formed think about current problems and propose contributions that they can make from their disciplinary field to help solve them, analyze if they have the resources and knowledge required to obtain a product during the semester that the project should last.
• Class 3: Define Problem to solve.
According to the Ghandiana Engineering video and the documents seen in class and on web pages, the problem to be solved by applied engineering is defined.The instrument is given to the students, so that each team can jointly complete it.It is read and the questions that are exposed are answered with the aim of clarifying the doubts that may arise.This activity is requested for the next class.
• Class 4: Search for information and confrontation of the project.
Considering: The databases of the institution, the web pages provided by the teacher, the searches carried out by the students with their own initiative, the information begins to be built according to the project that is going to be carried out.It must be always considered that the feasibility and scope of the project must be argued with scientific bases.This information should be discussed with the teacher, to continue with the counseling process and so that students have the accompaniment.Six proposals are collected for future solutions to problems from applied engineering.

Stage 3: How is a Project Developed?
The students define the project, define the resources and establish a procedure that will allow them to achieve the objectives proposed in the project.
• Class 5: Steps to develop a project.The teacher makes a magisterial presentation on the steps that must be followed to develop a project, the following are considered: 1. Define the problem, 2. Look for information, design the product (as a sketch), 3. Plan the construction (make quotes and project the completion time of the project), 4. Build the product and 5. Test and evaluate the product (provide feedback on the process if necessary).Examples of projects are given locating each of the steps raised.The instruments are collected and there is, again, a total of six proposals.
• Class 6: Completion of a report with a schedule of activities.
The students carry out the activity schedule considering the steps for the development of the project and give the teacher a copy, to be reviewed and followed up in the extra-class consultancies.

Stage 4: Accompanying and Monitoring the Schedule of Activities
The teacher is pending monitoring of the project based on the schedule agreed with the students.At this stage it is very important that the teacher accompanies and motivates the students, since this is where the most serious problems of death and cancellation of the project arise, such as components with a high price or difficult achievement, limitation by the proposed scope, team members who leave, technical problems of software or hardware compatibility, among others.One of the most important aspects to consider is the consolidation of the problem statement that the students captured in the instrument presented which is analyzed from the context and reoriented by the teacher according to its scope and relevance, considering the scope of the proposed competences.It is from the problems raised that the student must begin to explore the technical tools that are developed within the course to obtain the required solution; this in order to have a balance between technical and soft skills that the student must acquire.

Stage 5: Presentation of the Project
On the date set in accordance with Figure 1, the sample of classroom projects is carried out before a jury of other teachers, graduates and entrepreneurs.As a stimulus, a selection of the two best projects is made.It is highlighted at this stage that the other projects presented do not follow the work methodology presented in this article.The totality of projects presented was eighteen.

Stage 6: Gathering of Information, Confrontation of the Two Groups Sampled and Conclusions of the Study
After the Sample of Classroom Projects was carried out, the information provided by the event organizers was collected and the report and observations of the study were made.

RESULTS
The most relevant results of the described methodology implementation are the projects that were developed by the Electronic Technology students of the Programmable Logic Control course and the approach they managed to give it as projects that promote a more sustainable society since their formation in the engineering field.The most relevant projects developed by the students of the group intervened with the proposed methodology are highlighted below.

Ultraviolet Light Disinfection Chamber
Ultraviolet (UV) light disinfection systems represent an effective method of eliminating microorganisms in water, air, or objects without toxic residues (Xiao et al., 2019).This is achieved with a specific type of light (UVC) that basically destroys the DNA of any living organism.In this project a small-scale prototype chamber for disinfection with ultraviolet light was designed and can be implemented at a micro industrial level.Its main function is food disinfection, but it could be used in different situations (Arredondo et al., 2019).The young students team, with the accompaniment and follow-up of the teacher, manages to identify a health problem that affects the entire population, they propose a technological solution that is costly, but they develop a small-scale prototype that allows demonstrating the effectiveness of the solution and could motivate investment efforts at the industrial sector level, a niche where they identify the potential for initial implementation.They hope that technological development will reduce costs and make the proposed solution more affordable to reach more members of society.In Figure 1 you can see a photo of the prototype developed and an image of the user interface of the application designed for programmable control of the camera.

Meter Counter for Industrial Sewing Machine
In textile production, it is common to find sewing machines that only perform mechanical action, but do not automatically count the pieces that go through their process (uz Zaman et al., 2019).This action must be performed manually by an operator.This leads to higher energy consumption and material damage.With this project the problem is solved because the process in the machine is optimized, and the operator does not have to make 8 unnecessary stops for the count (Lopera & Alvarez, 2019).In this opportunity, the young students propose a dual solution when thinking about an occupational health problem and an industrial production cost problem, they also think about the environment by involving energy justification.With the accompaniment and follow-up of the teacher, they managed to develop a device based on artificial vision that after participating in the sample of projects was implemented in a sponsoring company, in Figure 2 the device developed installed in a textile company can be seen working and solving the problem that the young people identified as academic exercise.

Automation of a Pig Farm with a Programmable Controller
The work of the farmers is very time consuming; it must be divided into multiple tasks.A significant contribution to this work is the processes' automation (Jha et al., 2019).The objective of this project was the realization of a scale system for pig farm care using a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC).With this system, the hours for feeding were programmed and, by means of an electronic device, the pig's constant physical activity was ensured, which leads to avoiding fewer animals' deaths due to heart problems (Guerra et al., 2019).In this new opportunity, the young students monitored by their teacher addressed multiple problems of social nature, related pigs' survival and well-being with food security demanded by the world population, and automation through PLC with producer's comfort and facilities.They developed a scale prototype that made it possible to demonstrate the feasibility to implement their proposal economically for small-scale rural producers.Figure 3 shows the students group discussing the latest installation details with their mentor, and the model they made to recreate the application scenario for which they chose is appreciated.(Guerra et al., 2019).Source: (Guerra et al., 2019).

Automatic Greenhouse for Cabbage Cultivation
Nowadays, more and more applications are seen with trends towards environmental care and the use of spaces with automated devices.Urban cultivation becomes important accompanying the man's development in less toxic, cheaper, with higher yield and quality food generation (Vardhan et al., 2019).It consists of plants growing without soil, in a small space, using containers with a base substrate and with a solution composed of nutrients that are essential to feed the plants of the crop.This project allows that, accompanied by technology, an automated system can be achieved in the control and execution of tasks previously carried out manually (Torres et al., 2019).Again, the approach to food security is presented, but now in the urban environment.This group of young people points to a different population niche, more affluent, and suggests a very friendly alternative to the environment.In Figure 4, one of the team members can be seen conditioning the prototype from its computer interface, on the table the automated greenhouse prototype that they developed on an apartment scale is observed, capable of producing healthy food for single people who spend the day at their jobs and cannot take care of the plants as required.
The creativity and multiple students' competencies developed at this level was verified in this exercise.Each group of students was able, during an academic semester, to identify socio-environmental problems, propose interesting solutions and develop engineering devices and prototypes, for which they applied the knowledge acquired in their training process.The objective of the methodology proposed in this paper is verified, but the results have yet to be presented compared to groups that were not intervened, in which the teachers did not structure or carry out the same accompaniment and follow-up to their students, who although they learned the basic knowledge of the subject and passed the course, did not demonstrate the skills acquired by the control group in terms of identifying their role as engineers in the generation of a more sustainable society.Source: (Torres et al., 2019).
Once the Classroom Projects Sample was completed and the balance was made, it was reviewed through the rubric that the students reached level E (Expert) of the competencies raised by establishing through the presentation of their projects that they practice the competition and have mastery of it.Reinforcing the above with the second revised aspect, that mentions the argumentation capacity of students who are not only able to speak from a technical point of view, but also from a social, environmental and sustainability point of view.
Figure 5 shows the comparison of the group intervened with the proposed methodology against a reference group with the same characteristics, except for the application of the methodology.
Both groups submitted a total of six projects in the Classroom Projects Showcase, with a total of global projects submitted differing by only one project.The first benefit is observed in the comparison of the total presented by the group, where, thanks to the accompaniment, all the projects completed their process and were presented.It is highlighted then that personalized monitoring of the schedule of activities agreed in class 6 is essential for the achievement of the objective.A comparison is also made of the total number of projects presented in the group for 2018 and 2019, which are oriented towards solving social problems from applied engineering; An increase of around 66% is observed with the group to which the methodology was implemented, where 100% of the projects presented met the objective.For the last item, rating by the jury, it is observed that four of the six projects were in the first five places, demonstrating the objective achieved and the relevance of the solutions presented.In Figure 6, a comparison of the projects that began their process and culminated with participation in the event is presented first, where for the intervened group there is 100% achievement of the objective.In addition, in the percentage of projects with problem solving from applied engineering, a compliance of 100% is also observed against 59% of the total of participating projects.And, thirdly, regarding the jury's rating, the first four places were occupied by projects by students from the intervened group.That is, 80% of the first five positions was achieved by the group that intervened with the proposed methodology.

CONCLUSIONS
The educational methodology engineering for a Sustainable Society was implemented from the Toolbox of the Metropolitan Technological Institute (ITM), and the appropriation of soft skills typical of the global engineer was achieved in the Electronic Technology students who demonstrated their competence to solve social problems from applied engineering in favor of a sustainable society.
The collaborative work experience immersed in the Toolbox provides innovative elements to incorporate into the teaching-learning process, where a subject with a more global performance is being formed, with critical and purposeful thinking to contribute to the development of the region through the understanding of the problems that are common with other places and that from the specific knowledge can solve.
In the improvement of the problem statement, it was possible to transform the initial scope of the proposals that previously focused mainly on the technical solution, without considering that these solutions were really contributing to the solution of a social problem from applied engineering and that they for its sustainability.
Other general competencies that are shared with other disciplines must be incorporated: Ability to understand and communicate, Sensitivity to recognize the world and Attitude to transform it.We must continue to insist on this methodology to make it more common, allowing better results to be obtained by involving different actors who are working for a common good.
The solution of social problems from applied engineering goes from being a challenge to a reality, where the starting point to achieve the objective has everything to do with the teacher and the methodology used in accompanying the training process of future engineers.
The applied methodology is not an institutional policy of the ITM, therefore, its articulation with the curricular processes of the Faculty of Engineering and monitoring and evaluation over time is proposed in a future work.
However, in the development of this methodology and despite the encouraging results, there are several aspects to improve, such as the aspect of time, where students in less than four months studied a problem, proposed a solution, implemented a prototype and proposed a control algorithm.Currently the subjects involved are not designed to revolve exclusively around the engineering week project, so time must be shared for teaching and learning common knowledge that is necessary.

Figure 5 -
Figure 5 -Comparison of projects presented in 2018 and 2019.Source: Own source.

Figure 6 -
Figure 6 -Projects presented in the Classroom 2019 Project Sample.Source: Own source.

Table 1 -
Rubric for the evaluation of competencies.

Table 2 -
Competences of Technologist in Electronic Automation.