Advanced PBL Training in Problem Design and Facilitation Skills: Lodz University of Technology

Worldwide, there is a need for developing engineering education accordingly and for educating more innovative graduates with a suitable set of skills and competences to address complex professional and social problems, such as sustainability, automation and digitalisation. Problem and project based learning (PBL) has become one of the answers to educate engineers for the complex future.
PBL is gaining popularity and it is being implemented all over the world, resulting in different PBL models and practices. Part of successful implementation strategies are the initial pedagogical development courses to train the trainers.
This course aims to support academic staff in continuously develop their PBL knowledge and competences by addressing challenges that emerge existence PBL practice, specifically on problem design, facilitation skills, self-evaluation and assessment. The course takes a PBL approach and provides knowledge and exemplary activities delivered and facilitated PBL experts. Furthermore, the participants have the opportunity to develop new ways to address their PBL teaching challenges and deepen their PBL knowledge and competences. By the end of the course, participants should be able to:
1. Use problem orientation and student-directed problem design as a driver for students’ contextual and deep learning in a PBL environment.
2. Relate facilitation and the need for different facilitation roles and styles on a PBL environment,
3. Relate evaluation and assessment with one's teaching practice, specifically PBL practice and facilitation.
4. Identify different teaching challenges in a PBL environment, specifically in relation to problem design, facilitation skills, self-evaluation and assessment.
5. Develop strategies and tools to address teaching challenges in a PBL environment, specifically in relation to problem design, facilitation skills, self-evaluation and assessment.
6. Reflect on own’s PBL practice.
7. Provide critical and peer-feedback.

STRUCTURE, CONTENT AND FORMAT:
It is a two ECTS (60 hours) course carried out in 4 weeks. The different learning objectives formulated above are addressed in different modules combining different activities and resources. The different modules and the duration of each module. Three modules compose the training proposal: preparation module; face-to-face thematic workshops; examination.