Project Led Engineering Education

Are you, or is your university, satisfied with the motivation and rate of progress of students participating in the Bachelor's phase of your engineering degree program? Would you like your students to master the necessary technical skills of modern engineering, and to learn to study and to communicate effectively and efficiently? This book addresses these questions and explains how to successfully make the substantial change from a traditional teacher-led approach to a student-team-based-project-led approach to handling the Bachelor part of the engineering curriculum. The book also describes what Project-Led Engineering Education is all about and how team-based learning works.

Project approaches in engineering education are a relatively recent phenomenon in Portugal, Spain and Latin-America. Teachers, educational researchers and managers in engineering education are discovering the added value of team work, solving interdisciplinary open-ended problems in a meaningful learning environment that is similar to the professional context of future engineers. This book seeks to present a wide range of experiences of project approaches to engineering education, varying from mature to starting. It discusses different aspects of project approaches like project management, teacher training, assessment and institutional support. It also describes experiences taking place in a number of countries – Portugal, Brazil, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Spain and Australia – in order to provide an overview of project approaches in different cultural backgrounds. It aims to encourage those who are considering project approaches in their own engineering education context, taking into account the advantages of training future engineers through project work, while being aware of the challenges that a shift from traditional education to a project may bring.

PBL in Engineering Education: International Perspectives on Curriculum Change presents diverse views on the implementation of PBL from across the globe. The purpose is to exemplify curriculum changes in engineering education. Drivers for change, implementation descriptions, challenges and future perspectives are addressed. Cases of PBL models are presented from Singapore, Malaysia, Tunisia, Portugal, Spain and the USA. These cases are stories of thriving success that can be an inspiration for those who aim to implement PBL and change their engineering education practices. In the examples presented, the change processes imply a transformation of vision and values of what learning should be, triggering a transition from traditional learning to PBL. In this sense, PBL is also a learning philosophy and different drivers, facing diverse challenges and involving different actors, trigger its implementation. This book gathers experiences, practices and models, through which is given a grasp of the complexity, multidimensional, systemic and dynamic nature of change processes. Anette Kolmos, director of Aalborg PBL Centre, leads off the book by presenting different strategies to curriculum change, addressing three main strategies of curriculum change, allowing the identification of three types of institutions depending on the type of strategy used. Following chapters describe each of the PBL cases based upon how they implement the seven components of PBL: (i) objectives and knowledge; (ii) types of problems, projects and lectures; (iii) progression, size and duration; (iv) students’ learning; (v) academic staff and facilitation; (vi) space and organization; and (vii) assessment and evolution. The book concludes with a chapter summarizing all chapters and providing an holistic perspective of change processes.

People's competence has a strong influence on the strategy of human resource management, affecting daily aspects, thought patterns, and behavioral modes of executive management and employees. From a business perspective, there is a strong relationship between human capital and success and also an integral development of the human factor in all its dimensions, both personal and professional, and social competences must be a key factor to reach it. To help achieve this business excellence, it is necessary to transfer the demands of the labor market into education, and one of the ways is through methodological framework for Project Management and Management, specifically the IPMA Individual Competence Baseline, which is an essential tool for achieving economic growth, corporate development, and competitiveness.

The success of Problem Based Learning and Project Organised learning (PBL) as an educational method in the field of Higher Engineering Education is clear and beyond any doubt.

Computer science graduates often find software engineering knowledge and skills are more in demand after they join the industry. However, given the lecture-based curriculum present in academia, it is not an easy undertaking to deliver industry-standard knowledge and skills in a software engineering classroom as such lectures hardly engage or convince students. Overcoming Challenges in Software Engineering Education: Delivering Non-Technical Knowledge and Skills combines recent advances and best practices to improve the curriculum of software engineering education. This book is an essential reference source for researchers and educators seeking to bridge the gap between industry expectations and what academia can provide in software engineering education.

This book demonstrates how the theoretical concepts of the capabilities approach can be applied in the context of engineering education, and how this could be used to add nuance to our understanding of the contribution higher education can make to human flourishing. In demonstrating the usefulness of the capability approach as a lens through which to evaluate the outputs of engineering education, the author also shows how the capability approach can be informed by, and informs, the concept of ‘sustainable development’ and discusses what pedagogical and curricula implications this may have for education for sustainable development (ESD), particularly in engineering. As such, the book builds on the work of scholars of engineering education, and scholars of university education at the nexus of development and sustainability. Engineering employers, educators and students from diverse contexts discuss both the capabilities and functions that are enlarged by engineering education and the impact these can have on pro-poor engineering or public-good professionalism. The book therefore makes an original conceptual and empirical contribution to our thinking about engineering education research. The book provides inspiration for both engineering educators and students to orient their technical knowledge and transferable skills towards the public good. It will also be of great interest to students and researchers interested in education for sustainable development more generally and to engineers who are interested in doing work that is aligned with the goals of social justice. The book will also appeal to scholars of the capability approach within higher education.

Engineering education leads the preparation of the next generation of engineers. This is a difficult task as engineering practices rapidly evolve, pressured by the technological advancements promoted by these same engineers. Engineering schools are integrated into large and rigid higher education institutions (HEI) that are not known for their agility. Nevertheless, engineering educators must have the agility to go beyond HEI boundaries to close the gap between professional practice needs and engineering education. Training Engineering Students for Modern Technological Advancement examines the role of engineering teachers in preparing the next generation of engineers and presents perspectives on active learning methods for engineering education. As such, it contributes to bypassing the compartmentalized way of course organization typical in many HEIs and prepares for more agile engineering education. Covering topics such as game-based teaching methods, Industry 4.0, and management skills, this book is a dynamic resource ideal for engineers, engineering professors, engineering students, general educators, engineering professionals, academicians, and researchers.