Implementing Project Based Learning (PBL) is a challenging enterprise both for students and for teachers.
PBL demands a changing process in which teaching is about being able to work with other teachers in an
environment open to uncertainty, with creativity, improved communication and engagement. Considering
the need to support teachers to implement PBL, a group of researchers delivered 19 workshops since 2010
in 16 Higher Education Institutions in Brazil. These workshops were delivered using a PBL approach and most
of them had 20 hours of training. This study aims identifying the impact of these workshops and discuss the
contribution of staff development strategies to improve engineering teaching practice. The methodological
approach carried out for this study was based on an online questionnaire exploring the participants’
perceptions about their experience in the workshop and the impact on their teaching practice using active
learning strategies (difficulties, motivations, etc.). The questionnaire was sent to 367 participants’ active
email addresses. The findings, from the 67 answers received, point out that 95% of respondents said that the
workshops have had an impact on their teaching practice, and in general, they are applying what they have
learned in the workshops. The participants’ motivation came from the interest in learning new teaching
strategies, sharing experiences, improving student learning, innovating and even just out of curiosity.
Concerning to teachers’ training, more than 75% of the respondents’ claimed they have felt the need of
pedagogical training at the beginning of their career, and more than 70% stated that they keep on
participating in events to improve their professional practice as engineering teachers. It is important to point
out all respondents consider important or very important the existence of a professional teachers’
development program in their institutions, and the pedagogical training was highlighted as the most needed,
followed by the formation of practice communities and research groups. Based on the participants
perceptions it was possible to present a short list of general recommendations for the development of
engineering teachers training opportunities.The authors thank the teachers that kindly participated in this research. This work has been partially
supported by projects COMPETE-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT-UID-CEC-00319-2013, from Portugal.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio