(gentle upbeat music) - [Philomena] It's all about student empowerment, student voice, and students being able to visualize the future of education, which involves engagement.

(gentle upbeat music fades) - Dr. Mantella, thanks so much for joining us today.

Tell us what REP4 is to you, the Rapid Education Prototyping, and why you felt compelled, your why to do such a program that's had such a great impact.

- Yeah.

We had a summit in my inauguration week where we talked about the future of education with lots of really interesting speakers.

And there were two high school students and two college students at every table, with superintendents and presidents of universities and heads of corporate learning and development.

And bar none, the best inspirations came out of the students in the room, you know?

So it was like experiencing it.

And so we made a commitment to do a couple things, figure out how to shape the table so that students can have their full voice, and to do something that was very action-oriented, which is where the notion of prototyping came in.

- REP4 and Project Grand Path in general has opened the door for students to be the architects of their future and for students to have access to emerging tools in order to visualize that future.

- [Jennifer] Tell me about financial literacy and the advances they've made with that now that you've got the second year of students in place.

- In the first year, the students felt that before we could really make a comprehensive application, focusing on the various components of financial literacy, it was really important for the user, right, the student, to understand what their money personality.

So there's been a lot of research done on the psychology of Money.

So the students focused on building an app that really focused on the money personality.

So for example, someone who spends a lot of money might be a shopper or a gambler.

So there's these certain prototypes.

So now in the second year, now that we have the Money Personality app, which has had a lot of success in its market research, we're taking it to the next level and really building out the original provocation of the REP4 students, which was to have a place where they could go and have peer-to-peer communication and ask questions about things that they might not feel so comfortable about.

- [Jennifer] How important is financial lit?

- I thought it was important to not really teach anybody financial literacy.

I thought it was more important to understand or to motivate people to get more information about financial literacy.

So through that lens, we kind of stirred in the direction of what the students gave us.

They said, "Hey, can we make a an app that's social media based, social engagement, community-centric, and foster learning through that atmosphere?"

- The students that came together to do the prototypes, they're not all just computer wizards.

They came together from different departments or different curriculums, right, to develop this.

And that's kind of key as well because that pulls students together.

So tell me about the technology and the idea that they're able to come together and work on this from their various interests.

- So we're using design thinking and we're bringing in students from all different majors.

So what we're trying to build here is really a pathway between the classroom and their career or the real world.

So this is sort of a mock studio with equipment and technology that can involve a lot of depth, but can also be used a very entry level.

So students from graphic design are collaborating with students from computer science and illustration students and business students, and they're all working together, just like we do in the real world, and bringing what they've learned in the classroom to the studio environment.

- What kind of, give me a synopsis of what we're seeing when we go to that other room, go peeking over their shoulders.

- Okay, so what we're gonna look at when we go into the next room is we have a multi-camera setup, which is basically volumetric video, but not video in the traditional sense of what we're doing right now, but volumetric video, where we can basically take a multiple cameras and create a 3D model of somebody that includes what's called the mesh, or the geometry or the surface, right?

The texture and the materials that we're using, that we're wearing, as well as motion capture data, our movements.

So what we're gonna do is we're gonna take you into the next room, we're gonna scan you into with 3D Object or a 3D form, a 3D version of you.

And then we're gonna bring you back into this room onto one of the computers and apply motion capture data to you.

(bright music) (Jennifer faintly speaking) (everybody laughing) (Jennifer faintly speaking) - It's very encouraging to know that there's more people on the team.

And to know that as many ideas come through the door, a lot of 'em get, I guess, critiqued from like-minded peers, well-engaged on the topic more than ever, and it just keeps the wheels turning.

- I'm very excited about the future.

I'm excited about the future of technology, but I'm also excited about the future of education.

'Cause what we can provide in a physical environment, in an educational environment is the in-person opportunity for students to really collaborate with each other.

You can kind of do it through Zoom or through a virtual space, but it's really nice to be together in a space.

And the students would attest to this, that being together and learning what employers call the soft skills is really exciting.

So I'm very excited about hybridizing what we've done in the past with the potential for the future.

People are afraid of the future.

I don't feel like it erases anything from the past.

I feel it's important to embrace the new tools and build on what we've done before.

So, yeah, I'm very enthusiastic about the future.

(lively music) (lively music continues) (bright music) - Celebrating vibrant people, captivating places, and remarkable things.

This is "Living West Michigan."

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