During the last 40 years, problem- and project-based learning (PBL) has been widely adopted in engineering education because of its expected effectiveness in developing students' professional knowledge and transferable skills. With a growing number of PBL researches and practices in engineering education, systematic or meta-analysis reviews were…

Employability and skills development are contemporary issues in higher education. For vocational-professional disciplines, such as engineering, the signature pedagogy directs teaching and learning towards acquiring scientific knowledge. Engineering employers have called for graduates to be more work-ready and trained in team-working, communication…

This qualitative longitudinal study explored three engineering instructors' professional agency in implementing project-based learning (PBL), including multiple sets of data (18 interviews, observations, and written reflections spanning three semesters). The results show that the instructors' care for students, interest in pedagogical innovation,…

Professional bodies expect engineers to show competence in both mathematics and engineering topics such as mechanics, using their abilities in both of these to solve problems. Yet within engineering programmes there is a phenomenon known as "The Mathematics Problem", with students not demonstrating understanding of the subject. This…

This paper shows the planning, the teaching activities and the evaluation of the learning and teaching process implemented in the Chemical Process Design course at the University of Cantabria, Spain. Educational methods to address the knowledge, skills and attitudes that students who complete the course are expected to acquire are proposed and…

The School of Engineering at Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM) implemented, starting in the 2012-2013 period, a unified academic model based on project-based learning as the methodology used throughout the entire School. This model expects that every year, in each grade, all the students should participate in a capstone project integrating the…

This article presents the implementation of the constructive alignment theory (CAT) in a power system analysis course through a consensus-based course design process. The consensus-based design process involves both the instructor and graduate-level students and it aims to develop the CAT framework in a holistic manner with the goal of including…

The implementation of the Bologna Process enforced a significant change on traditional learning models, which were focused mainly on the transmission of knowledge. The results obtained in a first attempt at implementation of a cooperative learning model in the Soil Mechanics I course of the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of…

In this paper, we present the course called "New Media in Education and Research", which employs a blended learning approach. This course is a part of a new bachelor's programme "Natural Sciences in the Information Society" that is in place in TU Berlin. The main goal of this course is to provide the students with the…

This paper describes two case studies where problem-based learning (PBL) has been introduced to undergraduate civil engineering students in University College Dublin. PBL has recently been put in place in the penultimate and final year transport engineering classes in the civil engineering degree in University College Dublin. In this case study,…

Being a modern electrical engineer does not only require state of the art skills in areas such as transfer and processing of information, electronics, systems engineering, and biomedical electrical engineering; it also requires generic engineering skills such as oral and written communication, team building, interpersonal skills, and the ability…

The implementation of the Bologna protocol in the European Union has set new goals for the whole higher education system as: (a) a quality assessment for university courses; (b) a framework for the exchange of students and academics; and (c) an opportunity for changing the teaching/learning procedures and methodologies. Within the context, the…

This paper examines a particular methodology of teaching engineering design to undergraduate engineering students, which relies on Lego[R] Mindstorms[TM]. A number of important issues are addressed, including the timing of the design module within the programme, prior knowledge required and assessment components. The module, which has been running…

This paper presents the application of the problem-based learning (PBL) method as an innovative approach to teaching engineering. This paper supports the idea that the PBL method is aptly suited to teaching the engineering disciplines, as its methodology nurtures critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are central to a graduate's…

This paper presents the student evaluation of a problem-based learning (PBL) implementation in the postgraduate engineering curriculum of a public university in Brazil. This investigation adopts a qualitative and collaborative design, as suggested when the research objective is to study phenomena in their natural settings in terms of the meanings…