TSH, an innovative pedagogy and a pluridisciplinary research
UTC’s Technology and Social sciences Department (THS) focuses strongly on analysis and exploitation of situations faced by engineers today. This pedagogy is now deployed both within the framework of UTC’s classwork and that of placements/internships and end-of-study projects. The TSH department is also involved in the university’s apprenticeship training programme with the same desire to work on situations experienced by students in companies.
Social sciences and humanities
The current complexity of business companies and the socio-economic world has led the UTC Technology and Social Sciences Department (TSH) to focus on the situations facing contemporary engineers. This project aims to build, teach and develop:
- approaches and tools to be used in these situations (management of innovative projects, design of interactive interfaces, interculturality)…,
- knowledge and research paradigms that will renew the analysis and understanding of these situations. The THS department is particularly interdisciplinary, mobilising and combining knowledge from cognitive sciences, information and communication sciences, economics and management, philosophy, sociology, etc.
Key figures
The primordial position held by the UTC-TSH department can be better undertstood with the following key figures
- 115 credit courses (CCs) proposed ;
- 30% of the courses followed by every graduate engineer of UTC-Compiegne are THS-CCs;
- 2 500 students per semester;
- Over 500 graduates of the MPI (management of innovative projects) specialty programme of the UTC since 2000;
- 30 scientists in the UTC-Costech research unit;
- 1 UxD specialist Master’s degree;
- 5 « minors ».
The pedagogical offer
TSH seeks to train engineers whose technological excellence will be enriched by other skills. Its pedagogical organization is structured around three engineering situations: design, communication, organization & management.
During the course, the student must focus on two of these three learning lines and, for each of these situations, combine "approaches and practices" and "knowledge" intensive skills.
Each of these situations can be explored in depth:
- either in the pathway of the cross-disciplinary course Innovative Project Management (MPI) ;
- or in the framework of the 5 ("minor") TSH specialty courses on: digital cultural technologies; sustainable development; innovation and global corporate relations; philosophy, technology and cognition; controversies, communication and technology.
Focusing on the situations of the contemporary engineer leads to the implementation of an innovative pedagogy resolutely turned towards the analysis and exploitation of situations experienced by students in corporate settings. This pedagogy is now deployed both in the context of internships and end-of-study projects and in the context of apprenticeships.
Research
The excellence of UTC’s TSH research work is recognized thanks to a specific research unit UTC-Costech (Knowledge, Organization and Technical Systems). Focusing on the relationships between humans, techniques and societies, the Costech laboratory combines ambitious conceptual research with a concern for experimentation and testing in technical, organizational and social realizations.
It is involved in numerous field studies and technological development activities, covering a very broad spectrum of themes: health technologies, digital writing, development of perceptual support systems, digital democracy, computer science and training, management of knowledge and intangibles, ecological transition.
Pedagogical Aid
The Pedagogical Support Unit (CAP) is a support service for teachers and UTC as a whole and is attached to the UTC-TSH Department. It provides:
- Support for the use of techno-pedagogical tools:
- Pedagogical platform
- WebTV platform
- Interactive digital tools
- Pedagogical support approach for teachers:
- Awareness enhanced
- Training
- Coaching
- Support approach for the institution UTC:
- Support for the preservation of the UTC pedagogical model
- Support to the transition from high school to university
- Pedagogical exegesis of UTC strategy (competence approach)
Languages and language skills
The foreign language curriculum offers the possibility to learn the following languages face-to-face: English, German, Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, FLE (French as a foreign language), Italian, Japanese, Portuguese.
The ongoing digital transition and recent pedagogical changes encourage students to pursue language learning with a view to achieving a level of C1 – Mastery in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) during their course of study.
1. Language choices to be made as part of an overall project.
2. The need to obtain a B2 level in English through an external test. (TOEIC – with a minimum 785 points in the listening and reading test) or other tests recognized by French HE language skills regulations. This level is a condition for graduation, in accordance with the requirements of the Commission des titres de l'ingénieur.
3. Towards mastery of languages to facilitate international mobility and the possibility of learning 3 or even 4 languages during the engineering course.
University exchanges take place on 5 continents and in 43 countries (140 universities and 17 double degrees): Albania, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela. (This list of countries is constantly evolving).
For foreign students, the FLE (French as a foreign language) course consists of intensive programmes during the inter-semesters and French language courses at 6 levels (A1=>C2) in accordance with the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).