1. PBL and educational innovation
Problem based Learning in Engineering and Science – Development of Facilitator
PBL and educational innovation
Lars Peter Jensen
Associate profesor
Department of Control Engineering
Xiangyun Du
Associate professor
Department of Education, Learning and Philosophy

2. Overview Reflection on university teaching and learning
Why PBL - Challenges and changes
PBL history and related theories
Diversity and ongoing change
Reflection and discussions

3. Reflection on own learning stories

4. The way I was educated Big class, little room for individual ideas
’There is still one more seat in the wall’

5. Same materials year after year…

6. Memory is more important than application skills for high scores…

7. Transferred knowledge will be returned after exams

8. Your learning stories
Please spend 3 minutes sharing your learning stories with your neighbours

9. Am I teaching the same way I was taught?
Need for Innovation in Engineering Education

10. Room for innovation?

11. Can innovation be facilitated in this way?

12. 5 minutes’ discussion What is your understanding of learning?
Based on your own experiences, what are the roles of university teaching in relation to learning?

13. Teaching = Learning ?

14. Yes, it’s actually true – you can get a degree by repeating everything the teacher says.
Teaching = learning?
”We pretend that there is co-incidence between what is being taught and what is being learned” (Knud Illeriis, 1998)

15. Teaching = Learning?
“Teaching does not mean transferring knowledge but creating opportunities for …producing and constructing it.” (Paulo Freire)
(Karl Smith, UMN)

16. Learning – is it only about how brain works?

17. Theories related to PBL
Constructivism
Knowledge and learning is created by the students – not given to them

18. Life Long Learning and professional identity development
Learning to
become
Original figure in Wenger 2004

19. Learning in Communities of Practice
Participation
Informal
Unintended
Knowledge sharing

20. Experiential learning - Kolb’s learning cycle
Concrete
Experience
Active
Experiment
Reflective
Observation
Abstract
conceptualisation
Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experiences - David Kolb 1984

21. Experiential learning – the Cowan loopy diagramon
action
Reflection
for in
Time

22. Blooms taxonomy 1956 Competence Skills demonstrated 1. Knowledge
Observation and recall of information
(describe, identify, who, when, where)
2. Comprehension
Understanding information
Translate knowledge into new context
3. Application
Use information, methods, concepts, theories in
new situations
4. Analysis
Seeing patterns, organization of parts, rcognition
of hidden meanings
5. Synthesis
Use old ideas to create new ones. Generalize
from given facts. Draw conclusions
6. Evaluation
Compare and discremininate between ideas.
Assess value of theories. Make choices based on
reasoned arguments. Verify value of evidence

23. PBL Learning Principles
Learning Principles (Graff & Kolmos 2003)

24. A conceptualisation of PBL
PBL can be conceptualised as three central dimensions or processes that are stretched between teacher and participant control:
Problem – who defines and re-formulate?
Work Process – who chooses theory, methods and ways of working?
Solution – who owns the solution?

25. Why change? Why PBL ? – NEW Competencies
Scientific knowledge
Process and professional competencies
Project management
Communication
Teamwork
Organization
Technical competencies

26. Need for change: accreditations
Globalized context
Interdisciplinary knowledge
Lifelong learning
Effective communication
Analytical skills
Designing and conducting experiments
Application of
mathematics and science knowledge
Diverse capabilities
Intercultural competencies
Team work
Identity and solve applied science problems
Project management
Social, environmental, and ethical concerns
Characteristics of a communities of practice are cultivated in the historical, social and cultural context.
Learning as personal growth and development process – being and becoming through interaction with others in the social context
National Academy of Engineering, The Engineer of 2020, 2004
EUR-ACE (Accreditation of European Engineering Programmes and Graduates,
- ABET:

27. Need for change: industry expectations
Comparaison of capabilities taught at universities and required in professional life by young profesionals - Germany
(Becker 2006)

28. Ranking of capabilities important in professional life by young electrical engineers five years after graduation - Germany
(Becker 2006)

29. Change of profession and interdisciplinarity
Changes in the medical education system in many countries have been endorsed aiming to reduce the volume of factual knowledge taught didactically and to increase students` abilities to direct and maintain their own learning through methods such as Problem Based Learning

30. Educational changes in Denmark
New study programs: enriched engineering disciplines
New expectations: broadened engineering skills and competences
New study forms: implementing student centred and work place-imitated learning environment (for example, PBL as an educational strategy)
New challenges and tasks for educators

31. PBL as a strategy for change: development and diversity of practice
McMaster 1968
Maastricht 1972
Linkoping 1972
Roskilde 72
Aalborg 74
Problems as focus and stimulus for learning
Self directed learning
Student-centred and tutors as facilitators/guides
Team work
Problem orientation
Interdisciplinarity
Exemplary learning
Participant directed
Group work

32. PBL literature & theories
Objectives of PBL (Barrows 1986)
Structuring of knowledge and clinical context
Clinical reasoning
Self directed learning skills
Intrinsic motivation
Motivation and drivers (Barrows 1996)
Failure of conventional teaching methods in improving students’ the clinical reasoning and problem-solving ability
Students’ dissatisfaction
Need for involving medical practice into curriculum
PBL literature & theories
Five major characteristics (Vernon and Blake 1993, )
real or hypothetical clinical cases
small discussion groups
collaborative independent study
hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Focus on group process rather than provision of information
Evaluation (quantitative studies)
Effectiveness (Albanese and Mitchell 1993, Vernon and Blake 1993) Norman and Schmidt (1992), Barrows (1996), Norman and Schmidt (2000), Colliver (2000), Enarson and Cariaga-Lo (2001)
Academic achievement
Academic process
Clinical functioning
Concerns (Colliver 1993, 2000, Newman 2000, Morrison 2004)
Basic medical science knowledge
cost

33. Some who claim to be doing might not be
What is/are PBL(s)?
What do people do…
Some who claim to be doing might not be
Some are doing without realizing

34. PBL Learning Principles
Learning Principles (Graff & Kolmos 2003)

35. Variation Ways of implementation
Problem solving techniques in the lecture
Problem Based Learning in subjects / at institutional level
Project Based Learning in subjects / at institutional level
Problem and Project Based Learning
Inquiry Based Learning
Outcome Based Learning
Modes of practice
Senario
Case
Transdisciplinary
Intercultural projects
Mega project
Individual / team
Online Based / Face to face

36. DIVERSITY OF PRACTICE: PBL & curriculum relations
Tadahiko (2008)
PBL
Lectures
Lectures
PBL
Lectures
+ PBL
PBL track
Hybrid track
Partial attachment

37. Diversity of PBL practice
Implementation
Moesby, E "Reflections on making a change towards Project Oriented and Problem-Based Learning (POPBL)”, World Transactions on Engineering Technology Education (WTE&TE), UICEE, Monash University, Australia. Volume 3, No. 2, December 2004.

38. Problem solving skills in the lecture
Lectures
Literature
Questions
Answers
Seminars

39. Project Based Learning
Subject 1
Project 1
Subject 2
Project 2
Moesby 2004

40. Innovations Subject 1 Subject 1 Subject 2 Subject 2 Subject 3 Project
Moesby 2004

41. PBL at institutional level
Problem and Project Based Learning
- An innovation of the Aalborg Model
Study courses 7,5 ECTS
50% courses
Project courses 7,5 ECTS
One semester
Group examination
Individual examination
50% project
Project 15 ECTS
Model from The Aalborg PBL model - Progress, Diversity and Challenges Anette Kolmos, Flemming K. Fink & Lone Krogh
1 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) = 30 working hours

42. Evaluation from Danish industry on graduates

43. Employers judgement of innovation, IDA, 2008 (N=209)43

44. Overall assessment of Danish Engineering Institutions. IDA, 2008

45. DIVERSITY OF PRACTICE – ‘MODELS’
Problem
Process
Team
Assessment
Role of teaching
Aalborg
One
semester
Problems(5
months) -
open and
narrow
Project
Management
and process
skills
4-7 Ss
Self-form,
Discussing,
writing and
together,
Individual
judgement
in a team
based exam
Facilitation
based –
Consultancy
(low level
Of nstruction)
Maastricht
One week
- Case
based
Seven jumps
5-10 Ss
Discussing
together
exam
progress
Testing
based –tutoring
(low level of
instruction)
Republic
Polytechnic
One day
-structured
3 meetings a
day –
Solving
process
5 Ss
Quiz and
Written
reflection
Problem giver
and instruction

46. Major changes of PBL curricula
1969
1965
1983
2005
Stage – now COMPASS curriculum (concept-oriented, multidisciplinary, problem-based, practice for transfer, simulations in clerkship, streaming).
Challenges: insufficient assimilation of fundamental basic science concepts, insufficient attention on behavior and population perspectives, professional competencies, etc.
Stage Curriculum focused on population problems. Aiming at essential knowledge, fundamental skills, personal qualities, values, and attitudes to becoming physicians.
Challenges: students required a broad-based basic medical science foundation before they could begin problem solving.
Stage Curriculum focused on Biomedical problems. Aiming at skills of self-directed learning for information explosion, critical appraisal, self-assessment, etc.
(Neville et al 2007)

47. Major changes of PBL curricula
2005
2004
2008
2006
2009
2010
Stage Integrated courses of basic medical sciences
Stage increased number of courses and PBL percentage in overall curricula
Stage basic medical courses and 12 clinical courses (100%, over 50%, and less than 50% of curriculum)

48. The case PBL model in medicine at AAU

49. Bachelor program (project-oriented PBL in green) otherwise case-based PBL – all shared with medicine49

50. Comparison of the three models
Students number /year
Starting time of PBL
Drivers for change
Curriculum model
McMaster
3 year master
Around 140
1969
Altanative teaching and learning
Problem Based Learning (COMPASS)
AAU
5-6year master
50-70
1974 AAU Project Based Learing, medicine
PBL AAU tradition?
Case + Project based Learning
CMU 7 years master
More than 1000
200年
GMER
Hybrid PBL Shoestring model (Savin-Baden 2009)

51. Comparison of the three models
History, backgrounds, goals
Students and staff resources
Curriculum design in relation to educational philosophy and theories (How much percentage of the curricula)
Assessment and evaluation
Educational/Staff development

52. Questions and discussions