Smart Classroom Teaching Strategy to Enhance Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)-An Agile Approach for Education 4.0

The development of Industry 4.0 revolutionising the concept of automation and digitisation in an organisation poses a huge challenge in employee knowledge and skills to cope with the huge leap from Industry 3.0. The high-level digitisation of an organisation requires the workforce to possess higher order thinking skills (HOTS) for the changing job roles matching the rapid technological advancements. The Education 4.0 framework is aimed at supporting the Industry 4.0 skills requirement not only in digital technologies but more towards soft skill development such as collaboration and lifelong learning. However, the education sector is also facing challenges in its transition from Education 3.0 to Education 4.0. The main purpose of the paper is to propose an Agile approach for developing smart classroom teaching strategies that foster employee adaptability with the new learning paradigm of upskilling in line with Industry 4.0. By adopting an exploratory research methodology, the pilot study investigates the implementation of the proposed Agile approach in a higher education setting for graduates to achieve HOTS using smart classroom teaching strategies. This study uses learning theories such as experiential learning in smart classroom environments to enhance students' HOTS individually as well as collaboratively in an Agile iterative manner. This is the first empirical study carried out for graduates specialising in the Business Analytics skillset required for Industry 4.0. The findings of the pilot study show promising results that pave the way for further exploration and pedagogical insights in this research direction.