UAT’s mission focuses on educating and empowering students with a passion for technology so they are prepared for a lifetime of successful contribution in an increasingly global and complex world. Our educational culture focuses on creating the experiences and environments that develop the minds and talents of our students to meet the challenges of the rapidly evolving technology environment. Our approach is an integration of successful content delivery methods designed for the next generation of learners, a year-round learning environment that continuously engages students and a tiered curriculum approach intended to develop independent thinkers and innovators.
UAT also recognizes that the modern college student is different than previous college students: Today’s students approach learning with a value set that emerged from experiences including exposure to technology and myriad environments at very young ages. Adding this understanding to our knowledge of how to educate within technology disciplines creates the conceptual underpinning of our learning methodology.
This interactive graphic allows you to explore the concepts and elements that comprise UAT’s unique educational methodology, Synchronic Learning. Just click on an element to begin discovering why UAT students enjoy learning and our graduates thrive in their careers.
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Synchronic Learning
UAT has developed a vibrant, multifaceted academic environment where students are challenged to explore new and traditional concepts, and to independently and collaboratively practice what they learn in real-world situations to achieve their full potential.
At UAT, learning is a hands-on, real-world experience. Individual students and multidisciplinary teams work side-by-side with professors and industry leaders on innovative, complex projects.
There are four cornerstones of Synchronic Learning – The UAT Experience, Delivery Methods, Tiered Curriculum and Dynamic Learning.
As you will see, The UAT Experience begins with an immersion in technology and a supportive community in which a student will be challenged to excel and prepared to succeed.
The UAT Experience
The quintessential environment for learning is one in which students feel comfortable expressing their individual thoughts, while being challenged by other technophiles, professors and industry leaders. On campus, online and at leading industry events, it’s this UAT experience, coupled with a full immersion in technology that promotes the maximum development of each student’s potential.
Making a key contribution to the student’s engagement with, and enjoyment of, The UAT Experience is the variety of teaching/learning Delivery Methods utilized to best align with each student’s learning style and develop a passion for lifelong learning.
Delivery Methods
The University of Advancing Technology’s vibrant learning environment, and its instructors, technology and resources are tailored to each student’s individual learning style. A combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning, both on campus and online, promotes optimal, lifelong learning habits.
The first goal is to encourage every student to become more actively involved in the learning process. Through the Delivery Method, Modified Lecture, UAT puts information into the hands of students in engaging forms that enrich the learning process.
Modified Lecture
The Modified Lecture method is the instructor-facilitated presentation of new material that encourages students to become more actively involved in the learning process through both traditional on-campus dialogue and online discussions. The goal is to put information into the hands of the students while engaging them in the learning process as active participants.
In order to best present new material to students, Tutorial Learning is utilized to deliver hands-on experiences which build fundamental skills.
Tutorial Learning
Tutorial learning is a step-by-step presentation of new material, either with guidance from an instructor in class or with a student’s self-directed learning that begins with instructional guidelines provided online. The goal is to reinforce the cumulative success of all participants in a hands-on skill-building experience.
Then, to heighten the retention of learning, Group Recollection provides students an opportunity to put previously covered materials into practice synergistically with others.
Group Recollection
In this high-retention method of learning, multidisciplinary (programming, digital media, network engineering, etc.) teams create technologies, solve problems and complete projects by putting previously covered material into practice. Group Recollection teaches valuable work skills and team ethics that parallel the actual workplace.
The next Delivery Method, Student Teachback, allows students to take ownership of knowledge, develop self-confidence and build professional communication skills.
Student Teachback
Student teachback encourages deep thinking and the mastery of program topics by challenging students to prepare learning activities and taking part in the mentoring of their peers. Studies have shown that Teachback creates student engagement by making ownership of knowledge a student’s responsibility instead of solely the realm of the faculty.
The goal of this method is to allow for creativity, assimilation and retention, while developing both self-confidence and professional communication skills. To extend the mastery of learned material and skills, Discovery Learning allows students to apply their knowledge to creating complex technology projects.
Discovery Learning
Discovery Learning empowers students to become active knowledge discoverers, as opposed to passive recipients of information. Students consider a topic and practice researching the ideas, context and details surrounding it.
The goal of Discovery Learning is for students to master collecting, organizing and applying information as the steps leading toward synthesis and innovation. Students will practice Discovery Learning to create increasingly complex and interesting projects. The beneficial impact of the full range of learning Delivery Methods, is enhanced and nurtured by the balance and flexibility of UAT’s Tiered Curriculum.
Tiered Curriculum
UAT’s Tiered Curriculum ensures that students in all programs receive a balanced experience that encompasses solid foundations in theory, the uses of technology and tools, and practicing the skills of synthesis and innovation.
The curriculum tier of Concepts courses provide students with the foundation on which they can build optimum understanding of their technology discipline.
Concepts
Concept courses provide the foundation and platform from which students experience deeper, more intense and, at times, theoretical “what if” learning and innovation. These courses are designed to provide students with background and fundamental skills so that they may develop an understanding of the intellectual and systemic underpinnings of their technology discipline.
Skills Development is the next tier of courses. They give students an opportunity to develop complex Student Innovation Projects by exposing them to skills and tools from the leading edge of technology.
Skills Development
Skills Development courses are designed to expose students to the latest technologies associated with their majors, including software, applications, hardware, processes and systems. The goal is for students to practice new skills, through guided and goal-based discovery learning techniques.
The third curriculum tier is Synthesis. These courses provide an innovative, entrepreneurial environment in which individuals and inter-disciplinary teams can put the full range of what they have learned into practice on broader, more complex projects.
Synthesis
Synthesis courses are designed for students to put their learning into practice. Students are encouraged to propose their own projects and to define the methodologies and processes that will be utilized to complete innovative works. Synthesis courses are designed for students to work independently or in teams to apply their knowledge to broader projects and produce complete, complex works in their discipline.
Moving from the cornerstone of Tiered Curriculum to that of Dynamic Learning, we’ll see how Synchronic Learning provides the ideal setting for students to realize their highest learning potential.
Dynamic Learning
UAT has created an educational environment that’s tailored to individual learning styles, with a curriculum and project-creation experience that is continually evolving and changing—with guidance from the student, professors, family members, mentors and peers. This dynamic on-campus and online learning provides the ideal setting for students to realize their highest learning potential. Dynamic Learning continuously engages students in a technology-rich educational environment.
External Learning is the element of Dynamic Learning that takes students out into the real world of technology industry to learn from industry professionals.
External Learning
External learning activities center on students and teams leaving campus to work with industry professionals to develop learning skills that are aligned with real-world situations including symposiums, competitions and industry trade shows.
Dynamic Learning’s element of Flexible Scheduling allows students to optimize their learning experience while completing their degree—and getting to their future—more quickly
Flexible Scheduling
UAT maximizes each student’s learning experience by creating schedules tailored to on-campus students, online students and students who take a combination of on-campus and online courses. Moreover, with a year-round schedule, students are able to complete their degree and begin moving into their advancing technology future.
Flexible Scheduling allows for Year-Round Learning, which allows students to stay current with the constantly and rapidly evolving industry of technological innovation.
Year-Round Learning
UAT offers a Year-Round curriculum so that students remain at the cutting edge of the fast-moving and continually evolving technology industry. The success that UAT graduates achieve underscores the importance of the University’s Year-Round scheduling, which has been refined and perfected for more than 20 years.
Within Year-Round Learning, students can create a coursework path that aligns with achievement of their future learning and professional goals via Customized Curriculum.
Customized Curriculum
Students are encouraged to customize their coursework across disciplines and degree programs. UAT has a rich array of courses in a wide range of fields, which allows for students to pick and choose the coursework to customize their own degree program. This makes a UAT technology degree as flexible in terms of content as it is in terms of delivery.
Students can combine customized curriculum options to enrich their learning experience whether their schedule is purely resident, purely online or some combination of the two.
A major thread throughout a UAT’s student’s degree program is the Student Innovation Project. Each student begins crafting the idea for their project in their Freshman year. Upon completion in their Senior year, the project represents the first fulfillment of their technology learning, before going out in the world to continue their learning journey.
Student Innovation Project
UAT encourages students to advance society through the ethical development of tomorrow’s most innovative technologies. Each freshman crafts an idea for a technology that accomplishes this mission and, over the course of their studies, with continual feedback from professors, professionals and peers, develops this concept into a complete Student Innovation Project.
A key element of Dynamic Learning, Internship provides the real-world experience students need to test their technologic and personal skills.
Internship
Internships are the synthesis of a student’s coursework, where they apply their learning to real-world applications and situations in their field of study. Each student is required to complete an internship to achieve specific objectives and learning goals that strengthen the value of their degree and their value to industry employers.
At the core of Dynamic Learning is Independent Study, which allows for deep exploration of a topic that is not fully addressed in an existing UAT course.
Independent Study
Students can use independent study to rigorously explore ideas and applications where specific courses have not yet been created. Working with a faculty mentor, students identify learning goals and apply a high degree of discipline and motivation to deeply explore new topics, innovations and applications of technology.