Active Problem-based Learning for Engineering Higher Education

Hariklia Tsalapatas

, Carlos Vaz de Carvalho

, Olivier Heidmann

and Elias Houstis

Institute University of Thessaly, Argonafton & Filellinon, 38221 Volos, Greece

Porto Polytechnic, Rua Dr. Doberto Frias 712, 4200465 Porto, Portugal

Keywords: Active Learning, Problem-based Learning, Digital Laboratories, Simulations, Learning Games, Engineering

Higher Education, Modernization, Labour Market.

Abstract: The engineering sector today faces a shortage of technical personnel as a result of fast evolving technologies

in innovation related sectors expected to drive economic growth. Engineering higher education is in need of

modernization in order to link student skills to labour market needs. Skills necessary for supporting

economic growth include both a sound theoretical background as well as transversal competencies such as

problem-solving capacity, creativity, and analytical thinking. This work presents a problem-based learning

framework that aims to more effectively develop students for transitioning into the world of work. This is

pursued through active educational approaches supported by digital learning services that promote

collaboration, innovative mindsets, autonomous, and self-relying work. The proposed platform facilitates

learning experiences that integrate simulations and serious games linked to real world challenges in the

context of wider, blended learning practices. The framework is being developed by a network of European

and South Asian universities with the objective of integrating needs from diverse cultural, economic, and

educational environments resulting into an educational platform with international relevance.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the key challenges for growth in the

engineering sector is the lack of availability of

skilled personnel able to support emerging

opportunities. According to the New Skills Agenda

for Europe (European Commission, 2016) high level

skills are necessary for the personal and professional

growth of an individual and the realization of

aspirations and dreams. Furthermore, skills

constitute a key driver for job creation and

determine competitiveness in a global economy

whose growth is driven by innovation. In

engineering, the skills demanded by the job market

include a sound theoretical backbone as well as

transversal competencies such as critical and

analytical thinking, problem solving, entrepreneurial

capacity, ability to collaborate as well as work

independently, ability to work in a cross-cultural

environment, digital competencies for work, and

more.

As technology evolves in a fast pace,

educational providers may struggle to keep curricula

up to date and in line with industry needs. This is a

natural consequence of the rigid nature of formal

education which results in long processes for

updating educational offerings. This high lights the

need for modernizing higher education towards

building the skills remanded by the job market.

According to the Investing in Europe’s Youth

communication (European Commission, 2017), the

investment in skills can contribute to the fighting of

unemployment, innovation, competitiveness, and

social fairness. According to the Agenda for the

Modernization of Higher Education roadmap

(European Commission, 2017), higher education

institutions are in need of aligning the skills they

build to society, to drive innovation, and to link their

academic programs to the needs of people,

companies, and public services in their regions for

benefitting their surrounding areas.

The modernization of higher education

programs for linking them to emerging business and

societal challenges and opportunities requires,

among others, updating educational approaches to

ensure that skills developed can be transferred into

the world of work, enriching learning experiences

through digital technology, increasing student

motivation by linking education to the real world,

and linking educational activities to innovation and

Tsalapatas, H., Vaz de Carvalho, C., Heidmann, O. and Houstis, E.

Active Problem-based Learning for Engineering Higher Education.

DOI: 10.5220/0007720403470351

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2019), pages 347-351

ISBN: 978-989-758-367-4

347

research. This work presents a framework for

updating higher education practices in engineering

through problem-based learning approaches that

help build problem solving capacity and analytical

thinking. The proposed educational framework is

further enriched through simulations and learning

games inspired by real world challenges that

facilitate the transfer of newly developed knowledge

to the world of work facilitating a smoother

transition of students from academia to the industry.

The framework is being designed and developed in

the context of project ALIEN: Active Learning in

Engineering Education (Project ALIEN, 2017),

which brings together universities from Portugal,

Greece, Estonia, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Vietnam,

Cambodia, Pakistan, and Nepal with the objective of

designing educational interventions that contribute

to the modernization of higher education initiatives

in South Asia.

2 ENGINEERING HIGHER

EDUCATION CHALLENGES IN

SOUTH ASIA

South Asia is an emerging economy with high

growth prospects. According to the OECD

Economic Outlook for South East Asia, China, and

India 2019 (OECD, 2018), growth in the region is

estimated to an average of 6.1% for the period 2019-

2023 despite domestic and external challenges. In

relation to education similarities and differences

exist. In the countries of interest in this work,

namely Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan, and

Nepal, challenges include the effectiveness of higher

education, the fighting of unemployment, the

competitiveness of graduates, and building skills for

work. More specifically, according to the OECD

Structural Policy Country Notes (OECD, 2013),

Cambodia’s growth is threatened by inefficiencies in

the country’s higher education system and

challenges in both demand and supply for higher

education. Malaysia and Vietnam, although facing

different challenges in the labour market, are in need

of aligning skills to the requirements of their

economies (OECD, 2013). In Nepal, being the

poorest country in South Asia, a key goal is making

basic education accessible to all (Danida, 2004).

Pakistan is faced with fragmentation of technical and

vocational education and training, skills mismatches,

and skill recognition challenges that limit the

portability of its workforce (OECD, 2012).

Initiatives do exist for enriching higher education

practices in line with societal needs in the countries

in focus. The Malaysian Ministry of Education

launched in 2007 the Malaysian National Higher

Education Strategic Plan beyond 2020

(NHESP/PSPTN). According to the Malaysia

Education Blueprint (Ministry of Education

Malaysia, 2015), future educational goals include

increased access, research growth, and improvement

of institutional global rankings. The Cambodian

Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport has

launched the Cambodian Higher Education Vision

2030 aiming at identifying long term direction for

higher education development. The Government of

Pakistan introduced the Pakistan Vision 2025

initiative which aims to develop a knowledge

economy by increasing enrolment to higher

education from the current 1.5m to 5m (Government

of Pakistan, 2016).

3 PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

IN ENGINEERING

EDUCATION

Problem-based learning is a methodological

educational approach through which learners build

skills by solving a specific problem (Barrows, 1986)

(Savery and Duffy, 1995). While problem-based

learning was first initiated in medical education

(Barrows, 1996), where students would learn by

addressing specific medical cases, it is now widely

deployed in secondary as well as higher education.

In problem-based learning students are challenged to

combine skills from diverse thematic areas to solve

wider problems. The advantages of problem-based

learning are many. In addition to building core

knowledge, the method promotes the development

of critical and analytical thinking skills, inquiry,

collaboration, and entrepreneurial mindsets. In

problem-based learning students are called to

identify the problem at hand and its parameters,

analyse potential approaches for addressing it, break

the problem down to smaller tasks, and synthesize

an overall solution by combining those to smaller,

more contained tasks. In problem-based learning the

instructor acts as a facilitator that guides students

through the discovery and learning process (Boud

and Feletti, 1997).

In engineering education problem-based learning

challenges students to apply knowledge from diverse

subjects and thematic areas to solve problems often

inspired by the real world. This approach builds

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

348

student capacity to apply newly developed

knowledge in a manner that simulates acting in a

professional environment, promoting the

transferability of knowledge to the world of work.

Digital technology allows the enrichment of

problem-based learning through the deployment of

tools and services that may be applied in wider

blended-learning scenarios. Simulations, learning

games, collaboration environments, and more can

enhance learning experiences at all stages of the

problem-based learning process, from problem

presentation, to analysis, collaboration, and solution

synthesis. An example of a related environment is

the eCity learning application (eCity, 2013) which

exposes secondary education students to engineering

skills by challenging them to tackle non-trivial

problems inspired by real life the solution to which

requires an engineering perspective and the

combination of STEM knowledge taking also into

account economics parameters.

4 A PROBLEM-BASED

LEARNING FRAMEWORK

BUILDING ENGINEERING

SKILLS

This work focuses on the design and development of

a learning intervention that exploits problem-based

learning for building engineering skills for work.

The intervention targets engineering education and

is designed to address educational objectives and

challenges in South Asian countries taking into

account European experiences. More specifically,

the proposed problem-based learning framework

aims to address the need for modernizing higher

education offerings by:

 Promoting links between educational

offerings and industry skills

requirements.

 Building core engineering knowledge.

 Exploiting digital technology for

enriching learning experiences and for

addressing educational objectives.

 Fostering the development of

transversal skills including analytical

thinking, entrepreneurial thinking,

collaboration in an international

environment, and capacity for

independent work.

The learning intervention is implemented

vertically to address the needs of the educational

process in several levels. It includes the

development of infrastructure and facilities, the

design and implementation of supporting digital

learning services, and instructor capacity building

towards ensuring that proposed methodologies and

tools are integrated into day to day activities of

participating organizations and beyond.

At the infrastructure level, work focuses on the

development of problem-based learning labs at 12

South Asian universities in Malaysia, Vietnam,

Cambodia, Pakistan, and Nepal taking into account

individual organizational needs. These laboratories

aim to enhance the capacity of universities to

integrate problem-based learning into existing

educational practices. The aim of the laboratories is:

 To digitally enable problem-based

educational activities.

 To effectively support the deployment

of digital tools, such as serious games,

simulations, and AR/VR tools in

learning.

 To provide a pool of workstations that

students can use in problem-based

learning contexts.

 To provide a pool of workstations that

students and staff can use for

developing problem-based learning

digital applications.

 To increase interactivity in the

classroom through better connectivity

to the internet and access to interactive

equipment such as smart TVs and

more.

At the digital services level, work focuses on the

design and implementation of a digital platform that

facilitates problem-based learning. The platform is

aimed to be deployed as a complementary learning

service within broader problem-based learning

activities. It is further aimed to be flexible in order to

be relevant in the context of diverse institutional

strategies related to problem-based and active

learning in broad educational, cultural, and

economic environments. The educational objectives

of the proposed digital platform are:

 To promote problem-based learning

through on-line services which facilitate

the deployment of related activities in

digitally enabled classrooms.

 To provide access to rich educational

content for problem-based learning

engineering contexts.

 To increase classroom collaboration.

 To increase student interaction across

universities promoting international

collaboration.

Active Problem-based Learning for Engineering Higher Education

349

The proposed digital learning platform is

complemented with digital applications that

challenge students to deploy problem-based learning

approaches for solving engineering problems. The

content is in the form of digital learning games,

simulations, and other applications that expose

students to educational scenarios that require broad

theoretical and field knowledge while promoting

critical thinking. The design of the problems is being

pursued with the collaboration of teams from South

Asian and European universities to ensure broad

coverage of diverse educational needs linked to

institutional objectives of participants and industry

needs in their respective countries.

At the instructor capacity building level, work

focuses on enabling educators and educational

institutions to effectively integrate digitally-enabled

problem-based learning activities to already well-

designed educational practices for better preparing

students to enter the workforce. Given that

instructors play a significant role in facilitating

problem-based learning (Boud and Feletti, 1997),

their preparation for deploying the methodology in

the classroom is important for reaching educational

goals. Work in this area involves:

 The development of good practice

guidelines for instructors on the most

effective deployment of the proposed

problem-based learning intervention.

 The development of manuals on the

deployment of the digital services as

well as specific digital content in the

form of learning games and

simulations.

 The potential customization of digital

learning content for better addressing

institutional and class requirements.

 Suggestions on extra-curricula activities

related to problem-based learning.

 The organization and delivery of

training sessions in South Asian

countries on the deployment of

problem-based learning in engineering.

 The organization of transnational peer

collaboration activities for collective

skill building and exchange of good

practices and experiences.

The above work aims to lead to a holistic, end-

to-end approach that promotes problem-based

learning in a user centred manner that best addresses

the interests of students, instructors, educational

institutions, and society.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This work presented the design of a vertical learning

intervention for fostering problem-based learning in

engineering higher education in Europe and South

Asia. The proposed learning intervention is currently

under development. Instructor training and

evaluation activities will begin in early 2019 in

South Asia through learning experiments that

engage students and educators in 12 universities.

Feedback from these activities will be integrated into

the design and technical implementation of proposed

methodologies and digital learning tools for ensuring

that the final outcome best addresses student needs.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is funded with the support of the Capacity

Building for Higher Education Erasmus+ Program

of the European Commission. Project ALIEN:

Active Learning for Engineering Education, with ID

586297/2017, is implemented from 2017 to 2020.

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