The core components of education 4.0 in higher education: Three case studies in engineering education

Technological progress and its rapid evolution have positively affected the industrial sector and different productive/service sectors. One of the service-sectors that have benefited the most has been Education. In this sector, the implementation of current and emerging technologies combined with innovative pedagogical procedures and best practices is known as Education 4.0, which, in this paper, is described and mapped according to the well-known periods of the four industrial revolutions and related to higher education. Likewise, four core components of Education 4.0 to be used as a reference for the design of new projects in educational innovation are proposed (i) Competencies, (ii) Learning Methods, (iii) Information and Communication Technologies, and (iv) Infrastructure. Finally, three case studies applied to Engineering Education illustrate how the proposed components are considered in educational programs' designs.