scholarly journals Ten Years of Project-Based Learning (PBL) in Industrial Engineering and Management at the University of Minho

2017 ◽  
pp. 33-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui M. Lima ◽  
José Dinis-Carvalho ◽  
Rui M. Sousa ◽  
Anabela C. Alves ◽  
Francisco Moreira ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
Anabela C. Alves ◽  
Francisco Moreira ◽  
Celina P. Leão

The Integrated Master in Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) program has been implementing Project-Based Learning (PBL) for more than 15 years in the first year, first semester. The IEM program is currently attracting students from different programs, using transfer mechanisms, who normally already have passed some of the courses on their original program. Additionally, this program also attracts a number of students already working in some companies. These students are a bit older and their profile is also distinct from that of their fellow colleagues, which enter the university using a regular national ingress process. Thus, distinct situations are identified that demand a different learning approach. The teachers have come-up with one such distinct approach and called it “non-PBL”, since the PBL model is structured in a way that students must have a specific profile, namely, to be first-year IEM student and enrolled a similar set of curricular units. With this in mind, this paper presents these situations, and describes the solution found to address this diversity. The solution must promote similar competences on both PBL and “non-PBL” students. A heavier workload is imposed on the teachers, given that the number of “non-PBL” teams formed can be as much as the number of PBL teams. Nevertheless, the results demonstrate that the “non-PBL” students successfully conclude the first year and that they value the solution proposed, in spite of the difficulties raised with this process.


Author(s):  
Anabela C. Alves ◽  
Francisco Moreira ◽  
Celina P. Leão ◽  
Senhorinha Teixeira

Teamwork tutors are one of the characteristic elements of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology. PBL is considered to be an active learning methodology that involves the students in their own learning, by promoting the development of a large interdisciplinary project. The project runs typically over one full semester, or longer, and it is supported by a number of Project Supporting Courses (PSC) that teach and also applies its own contents aligned with project objectives. A set of activities, tasks and milestones are planned for each team so that the project objectives are accrued, with the aid of a tutor that follows the normal development and reports on its progress. This paper discusses the role of the tutor from both sides: students’ and teachers’ tutors, and students in their first year of the Integrated Master in Industrial Engineering and Management program at the University of Minho. A total of thirteen tutors (four teachers and nine third year students) tutored six teams of students. Two on-line questionnaires were used to collect: 1) the perspectives of the tutored students with a total of 38 questions; 2) the perspectives of the tutors with a total of 22 questions. It was interesting to note that almost all students that answered to the questionnaire enjoyed having an older student tutoring them. The students’ tutors also enjoyed and they all had a good tutorship experience, being a special opportunity to help the first year colleagues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3519
Author(s):  
Paola Adinolfi ◽  
Fernando Giancotti

This paper explores the post-pandemic strategic reorientation of a master in leadership and change management, investigating the conditions for its success and the side effects. The Master, which is part of the Defense Education Enhancement Plan recently approved by the Italian Ministry of Defense, led in partnership by the Center for High Defense Studies and the University of Salerno, aims at developing strategic leadership and change management competencies. The virtualization of the project work sessions that was caused by the pandemic emergency produced unexpected consequences that led the master directors to refocus the program as regards its format and method. The case-study, based on direct observation, unstructured interviews, and analysis of written documents and recorded audio, corroborates the literature regarding the emerging innovative, learner-centered approaches in management education, showing the effectiveness of an integrated educational approach based on traditional in-presence lectures, as well as experiential and project-based learning. It shows how the adjustments devised to cope with the consequences of teamwork virtualization proved to be synergistic, delivering positive outcomes in terms of participants’ satisfaction, learning, and impact. Future research avenues and practical implications are also highlighted, with a focus on the internal and external conditions for successful project-based learning in a distance learning environment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla MC e Cavalcante Koike ◽  
Dianne M Viana ◽  
Flavio B Vidal

This article describes the approach to promote project-based learning and interdisciplinarity within established engineering undergraduate programs at the University of Brasilia. The implementation process and some representative projects developed are presented, as well, as a discussion about the role of interdisciplinarity in transferable skills acquisition and their many benefits for all students from undergraduate courses involved.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Cristina Barris ◽  
Lluís Torres ◽  
Enric Simon

This article presents the results of a case involving the application of project-based learning carried out with students in the Mechanical Engineering degree program at the University of Girona. The project, entitled “Design and construction of a wooden bridge”, was conducted at the Polytechnic School in the third-year Structures course. This project required students to address, consider and solve different problems related to the resistance of materials, structural calculations, material optimization and structural design. The project also included the building of the bridge based on the calculations made, thus enabling the students to verify the suitability of the theoretical calculations as compared to real results. Finally, a competition was held to reward those teams who obtained the best ratio between the failure load and the weight of the bridge. The main conclusion observed from the implementation of only two editions of this project is the acquisition of the different proposed competences (both specific and cross-curricular) by the students. Finally, it was interesting to note that after completing the activity, the students were observed to be more motivated by the course content.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devin R. Berg ◽  
Matthew Wigdahl ◽  
Charis D. Collins

This Work in Progress paper presents on the design of project-based learning approach focused on assistive technology as applied in a freshmen level engineering course which also integrates outreach with the local K12 system. The university course targets general education topics as well as an introductory engineering design experience and includes content on the engineering design process, societal implications of engineering design, and a participatory lab-based design project. A partnering class of 5th graders from a local elementary school made use of a daily block of time set aside for academic interventions and individual project-based work to collaborate with the university class. A qualitative assessment was conducted and has thus far has revealed that the university students found the assistive technology theme of the semester-long design project to be meaningful. For the K12 students, the survey results and anecdotal observations suggest that we were only moderately successful in constructing a meaningful and purposeful design experience, from their perspective.


Author(s):  
Apolinar Trejo-Cuevas ◽  
Gerardo Parra-Rodríguez ◽  
María Teresa Díaz-Robledo ◽  
Javier Jesús Torres-Yáñez

Objective. Implement a website that allows the outreach of the science of Information and Communication Technologies to the staff of the university community of the UTNG to facilitate digital inclusion, taking advantage of the current infrastructure that the university has, as well as its human capital. Methodology. The adopted development model was a concurrent model: For the Frontend development the spiral model was used, which facilitates its design through the stages of prototyping, analysis and design. On the other hand, for the development of the Backend, the waterfall model was used, given the nature of the project, where the requirements are pre-established and with few changes. The phases of this model are: (Requirements. Survey of requirements, Design. Development of the database and class diagrams, Implementation Coding, Check. Tests, Maintenance. Correct errors in functionality) Contribution. Implementation of project-based learning (PBL) as a motivational teaching strategy in the development of web applications. Use of robust development tools used today by software factories, such as: Java, Spring, HTML5, CSS3, and Apache Maven; all this under a Model View Controller architecture.


Author(s):  
Jéssica Barbosa Da Silva ◽  
Jonas Gomes da Silva

The undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering at the Faculty of Technology (FT) of the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM) completed 15 years in the first semester of 2019. During this period, enrolled 837 students, of which 238 (28%) have already graduated, 335 (40 %) continue to study and 263 (32%) have left the course. Given this percentage of dropout and the need to research more about the topic, this article aims to investigate the main causes of abandonment in this course in order to propose strategies to minimize the problem. The method used was the Survey, which applied a five-part electronic questionnaire sent to 203 dropout students who had e-mail. After analyzing the answers of 39 (19.21%), it was concluded that most students did not receive vocational orientation before joining the University and the main reasons that influenced the students to quit the course were the didactic-pedagogical deficiency of the teachers, the difficulty in conciliating study and work, and the course did not satisfy their expectations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 293-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mammar Belagra ◽  
Belkacem Draoui

The purpose of this research was to study the impact of project-based learning and information and communication technologies on students’ motivation. Two second-year classes in electrical engineering at the University Tahri Mohamed in Béchar, Algeria, were involved in the study. The experiment compared the level to which one class of students mastered goals without the use of information and communication technologies, to the mastery achieved by a second class which participated in a tutorial that has a technological tool built into the project-based approach. The subject of power electronics was chosen for this study because of its different knowledge, which is strongly represented in difficult learning contents for students. A questionnaire about motivation was used to collect data within an experimental research plan. After three months of conducting the study, the results demonstrated that the integration of the tutorial with the project-based approach is likely to increase students’ motivation to learn and to master the subject of power electronics.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document