Design and innovation with problem based learning methods: An engineering perspective

Of the many diverse and fascinating challenges we face today, the most intense and important is how to understand and shape the new technology revolution. We are at the beginning of a revolution that is fundamentally changing the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope and complexity, what one would consider being the fourth industrial revolution that is unlike anything humankind has experienced in human history. One would assume that the educational systems in particular for undergraduate engineering students would follow the same trend and if educating engineers should be affected by this paradigm change. Today, we are still struggling with overcrowded auditoriums where students are bystanders for a lecture that varies between one or two academic hours. We still expect that our students learn by attending these lectures in addition to reading a book with the same thickness as their own head. By then, we expect that they do not only understand everything, but also become creative and innovative and use that knowledge in their future carrier. Although, there have been a tremendous effort to achieve an educational method that satisfy all the aforementioned requirement criteria to follow these rapid changes towards a technological society, none of the todays solutions is able to address all these demands. Recently, there has been a political wind that is blowing in the direction of problem based and in particular, research based learning methods. Problem based learning is a teaching method in which the students initially are presented with a problem to be solved, prior to any form of lectures. The learning shall take place as the students try to solve the problem. They will have to find the information they need, structure the information and evaluate if it is sufficient to solve the problem. The tasks given to a graduated engineer will often be problem solving or to create new products or services. Therefore, it is important to teach the students how to solve problems or how to apply their knowledge in a creative way in order to achieve innovation. There are challenges to integrate these learning methods with other criteria that involves innovation and creativity. In our department, we have experience with problem based learning in single courses and we will share our learning points. In this paper, we are challenging how a problem based learning is comprehended from an engineer perspective, and specifically sketch how we could activate different cognitive levels in a learning model that uses problem based learning (PDF) Design and innovation with problem based learning methods: an engineering perspective. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319272860_Design_and_innovation_with_problem_based_learning_methods_an_engineering_perspective [accessed Sep 24 2018]