Problem-based learning: enhancing students learning of building information modelling

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is an innovative collaborative process underpinned by digital technologies introduced to improve project performance in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. Growth in industry demands has necessitated BIM inclusion into the Higher Education (HE) curricula as both a pedagogic and practical objective to prepare and develop aspiring Built Environment (BE) professionals with the required competence for contemporary practice. However, comprehension of BIM concepts and developing the skill set required for its application can be overwhelming for students and crucial to mitigating this challenge is the adoption of appropriate learner-centred strategies. Problem-based Learning (PBL) is becoming a widespread strategy to address such concern. This paper evaluates the impact of PBL strategy on students accelerated learning of BIM based on a case study of an undergraduate BIM module. Findings from the study show PBL benefits on students’ knowledge acquisition (cognitive and affective) of BIM concept and development of transferable skills (academic and disciplinary) equipping them with capabilities to become BIM competent and workplace ready for the AEC industry

A review of literature on communication skills development (CSD) in the engineering curriculum

Engineering education has expanded recently to include emphasis on the development of some very specific non-technical attributes that match a strong technical base to produce well-rounded engineering graduates who are flexible and adaptable to suit the constantly developing and changing requirements of the workplace. These non technical skills include communication skills, the ability to function in teams, knowledge of societal and contemporary issues, development of global perspective, and ethics awareness. A great importance of these abilities to engineering education has emerged over the last decade even within the international and local scene. Within the Malaysian context, the Engineering Accreditation Council’s (EAC) Engineering Program Accreditation Manual(BEM, 2007) , outlines ten learning outcomes that encompasses both the technical and non technical skills which are considered essential for graduating engineers. Similarly, the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) Criterion 3 (ABET, 2000), outlines eleven criterion which targeted many of these as essential program outcomes in order for engineering programs to be accredited and which are seen as critical for the success in the twenty first century. Communication skills development(CSD) is one of the outcomes required by an undergraduate engineering program in the Engineering Accreditation Council (EAC) for Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) in Malaysia as well as in the ABET Engineering Criteria 2000 (ABET, 2000). CSD is essential for an engineer who aspires to carry out his/her professional practice in the global arena and especially in the English language. With an increasingly global economy, the Malaysian education system must produce graduates who can communicate effectively in English. Otherwise, it would lose one of its vital selling points for foreign investors to ensure that skilled labor force are sufficient to support internationally competitive commerce and industry and to provide individuals with opportunities to optimize their potentials (Muhammad Rashid bin Rajuddin, 2006; Riemer, 2002)

Curriculum renewal for interprofessional education in health

In this preface we comment on four matters that we think bode well for the future of interprofessional education in Australia. First, there is a growing articulation, nationally and globally, as to the importance of interprofessional education and its contribution to the development of interprofessional and collaborative health practices. These practices are increasingly recognised as central to delivering effective, efficient, safe and sustainable health services. Second, there is a rapidly growing interest and institutional engagement with interprofessional education as part of pre-registration health professional education. This has changed substantially in recent years. Whilst beyond the scope of our current studies, the need for similar developments in continuing professional development (CPD) for health professionals was a consistent topic in our stakeholder consultations. Third, we observe what might be termed a threshold effect occurring in the area of interprofessional education. Projects that address matters relating to IPE are now far more numerous, visible and discussed in terms of their aggregate outcomes. The impact of this momentum is visible across the higher education sector. Finally, we believe that effective collaboration is a critical mediating process through which the rich resources of disciplinary knowledge and capability are joined to add value to existing health service provision. We trust the conceptual and practical contributions and resources presented and discussed in this report contribute to these developments.Office of Learning and Teaching Australi

Developing innovation competences in engineering education through project-based and challenge-based learning

There is a gap between industry needs and engineering graduates’ competences that since the past two decades has been under discussion. Engineering graduates are perceived as “too theoretical” by the industry and face difficulties when adapting to the practical working context. This gap is being mostly tackled by project-based courses. Furthermore, the expected competences of the future engineers go beyond the purely technical skills. Competences like creativity, innovativeness, business skills, sense of responsibility, problem-based thinking, collaboration, ability to communicate and effectively dealing with stress and uncertainty, among others, will be increasingly important in the future. Innovation competences in particular are key to tackle current societal challenges, but there is limited understanding about what innovation competences are developed through different types of project-based courses. An education that remains only in the scope of technical skills traditionally expected from engineers will eventually limit the capabilities of the engineers to influence strategy and management decisions, as well as concept definition for new products and services. Institutions like ABET, CDIO and ENAEE – EUR-ACE®, highlight these demands for future engineers’ competences. Ultimately, the more engineers master the innovation process beyond the technical aspects, the more impact they can have in shaping the society of the future, and the greater chances they have to position themselves as decision makers. This study discusses what are the innovation competences needed for engineering students and pedagogical approaches to develop those competences, with the aim of understanding how to better design educational strategies to improve innovation competences in future engineering graduates. A broad literature review was developed on existing innovation competences models and pedagogical approaches to develop innovation competences, going from problem-based to project-based learning to challenge-based education, from New Product Development to Design Thinking, and through different strategies to measure innovation competences. Through a mixed method approach, combining quantitative analysis of surveys and qualitative content analysis of project results, we compared two experiential learning courses developed at the UPC Telecom school: a project-based course and a challenge- based course. We compared self-perception on innovation competences using the INCODE (Innovation Competences Development) Barometer and we developed a qualitative content analysis of project results and self-reflection documents of two groups of engineering students from Telecom Engineering school from UPC going through CBI (Challenge Based Innovation) course versus PDP (Product Development Project) course. CBI is an innovative learning experience carried out by three institutions: Telecom Engineering School of UPC, ESADE Business School and IED Instituto Europeo di Design in collaboration with CERN, where mixed teams of students from the three institutions face open innovation challenges through Design Thinking, with the objective of designing solutions to complex societal problems, considering the use of CERN technologies if suitable. PDP is the “standard” capstone course taken by Telecom engineering students following a classical project management approach based on the CDIO framework. Results shows that experiential learning approaches like project-based and challenge-based education are good educational strategies for developing competences and, explicitly, innovation competences in engineering education, but each strategy emphasizes some competences more than others. Project-based courses demonstrates better results in Planning and Managing Projects. Creativity, Leadership and Entrepreneurship are more developed through a challenge-based approach combined with Design Thinking.Existe una brecha entre las necesidades de la industria y las competencias de los graduados en ingeniería que se ha estado debatiendo desde las últimas dos décadas. Los graduados en ingeniería son percibidos como "demasiado teóricos" por la industria y encuentran dificultades para adaptarse al contexto laboral real. Esta brecha se aborda principalmente mediante cursos basados en proyectos, desarrollando las competencias esperadas de los futuros ingenieros, que van más allá de las habilidades puramente técnicas. Competencias como la creatividad, la innovación, las habilidades empresariales, el sentido de la responsabilidad, el pensamiento basado en problemas, la colaboración, la capacidad para comunicarse y afrontar eficazmente el estrés y la incertidumbre, entre otras, serán cada vez más importantes en el futuro. Las competencias de innovación en particular son clave para abordar los desafíos sociales actuales. Pero hay una comprensión limitada sobre qué competencias de innovación se desarrollan a través de diferentes tipos de cursos basados en proyectos. Instituciones como ABET, CDIO y ENAEE - EUR-ACE®, destacan estas demandas de competencias de los futuros ingenieros. Este estudio analiza cuáles son las competencias de innovación necesarias para los estudiantes de ingeniería y los enfoques pedagógicos para desarrollar estas competencias, con el objetivo de comprender cómo diseñar mejores estrategias educativas para el desarrollo de competencias de innovación en los futuros graduados en ingeniería. Se desarrolló una extensa revisión de la literatura incluyendo modelos de competencias de innovación y enfoques pedagógicos existentes para desarrollar competencias de innovación, pasando del aprendizaje basado en problemas al aprendizaje basado en proyectos y la educación basada en retos. También se estudió el desarrollo de nuevos productos (NPD) y el pensamiento de diseño (Design Thinking), así como diferentes estrategias para medir competencias de innovación. A través de un enfoque de métodos mixto, combinando el análisis cuantitativo de encuestas y el análisis de contenido cualitativo de resultados de proyectos, se compararon dos cursos de aprendizaje experiencial desarrollados en la escuela Telecomunicaciones de la UPC: un curso basado en proyectos PDP (Proyecto de desarrollo de producto) y un curso basado en retos (CBI-Challenge Based Innovation). Se analizó la autopercepción sobre competencias de innovación utilizando el Barómetro INCODE (Innovation Competences Development), y se desarrolló un análisis de contenido cualitativo de los resultados de proyectos y documentos de autorreflexión. CBI es una experiencia de aprendizaje innovadora llevada a cabo por tres instituciones: Escuela de Ingeniería de Telecomunicaciones de la UPC, ESADE Business School e IED Istituto Europeo di Design en colaboración con CERN, donde equipos mixtos de estudiantes de las tres instituciones enfrentan desafíos de innovación abierta a través del Design Thinking, con el objetivo de diseñar soluciones a problemas sociales complejos, considerando el uso de tecnologías CERN (si es apropiado). PDP es el curso final ¿estándar¿ que toman los estudiantes de ingeniería de telecomunicaciones siguiendo un enfoque clásico de gestión de proyectos basado en el marco CDIO. Los resultados muestran que los enfoques de aprendizaje experiencial como la educación basada en proyectos y la educación basada en retos son buenas estrategias educativas para desarrollar competencias y, específicamente, competencias de innovación en la educación en ingeniería. Pero cada estrategia enfatiza algunas competencias más que otras. Los cursos basados en proyectos demuestran mejores resultados en la planificación y gestión de proyectos. La creatividad, el liderazgo y el espíritu empresarial se desarrollan más a través de un enfoque basado en retos combinado con Design Thinking.Postprint (published version

The use of computers for graduate education in Project Management. Improving the integration to the industry.

This paper presents an initiative for monitoring the competence acquisition by a team of students with different backgrounds facing the experience of being working by projects and in a project. These students are graduated bachelor engineering are inexperienced in the project management field and they play this course on a time-shared manner along with other activities. The goal of this experience is to increase the competence levels acquired by using an structured web based portfolio tool helping to reinforce how relevant different project management approaches can result for final products and how important it becomes to maintain the integration along the project. Monitoring is carried out by means of have a look on how the work is being done and measuring different technical parameters per participant. The use of this information could make possible to bring additional information to the students involved in terms of their individual competencies and the identification of new opportunities of personal improvement. These capabilities are strongly requested by companies in their daily work as well as they can be very convenient too for students when they try to organize their PhD work

Escaping the subject-based class : A Finnish case study of developing transversal competencies in a transdisciplinary course

In 2014, the Finnish National Board of Education launched a new core curriculum with the aim of meeting the skills and competence requirements of the 21st century. The purpose of this case study was to find out what transversal competencies Finnish eighth graders developed and how they experienced studying in a problem-based transdisciplinary course, which was arranged for the transitional stage between the former and the new curriculum. The qualitative data consisted of questionnaires and interviews. The analysis followed the methods of qualitative content analysis. When asked about their learning, the students commented on not having learnt much, referring to the discipline-based knowledge. Instead, they had learnt skills through teamwork, problem solving, and expression of their views and opinions, an aspect that they did not clearly connect with the things to be learnt at school. Many students felt that they acquired the competencies that they would need later in their lives. The students' teamwork had a crucial impact on their learning experience. The timeframe for the integrative approach needs careful consideration; the learning process in this course was perceived as being successful because it was long enough. Our study highlights that focusing on students' views is critical when reforming curriculum.Peer reviewe

Inter-professional education and primary care : EFPC position paper

Inter-professional education (IPE) can support professionals in developing their ability to work collaboratively. This position paper from the European Forum for Primary Care considers the design and implementation of IPE within primary care. This paper is based on workshops and is an evidence review of good practice. Enablers of IPE programmes are involving patients in the design and delivery, providing a holistic focus, focussing on practical actions, deploying multi-modal learning formats and activities, including more than two professions, evaluating formative and summative aspects, and encouraging team-based working. Guidance for the successful implementation of IPE is set out with examples from qualifying and continuing professional development programmes

Education for Sustainable Development: Engineering Student Success with EPS@ISEP

Motivation is the key to academic success. In the case of engineering, autonomous project teamwork guided by ethics and sustainability concerns acts as a major student motivator. Moreover, it empowers students to become lifelong learners and agents of sustainable development. Engineering schools can thus address simultaneously these two essential education goals – learning and academic success – by challenging students to find innovative, sustainable solutions in a learner-centred set-up.This paper describes how the European Project Semester (EPS), a capstone engineering programme offered by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), combines challenge-based learning, ethics and sustainability-driven problem-solving, and international multidisciplinary teamwork to achieve both goals.This work was partially supported by Portuguese National Funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) – as part of project UIDB/50014/2020.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio