Aalborg UNESCO Certificate: Staff Development and Challenges in PBL Training Programme

Problem- and project-based learning (PBL) has been widely adopted in engineering education during the last 40 years because of its effectiveness in improving students’ academic knowledge, teamwork skills, communication skills and leadership. However, in a PBL environment, notonly students, but engineering staff, too, have faced the challenge of transferring their learning/teaching practice from traditional methods to innovative PBL strategies. In order to improve PBL implementation and promote curriculum change processes, it is important to provide PBL pedagogical training opportunities for engineering staff. In collaboration with the Northeastern University, China, the Aalborg UNESCO Centre set up a half-year certificate programme on the Basics of PBL and Curriculum Change for Academic Staff Development. Using a qualitative method, this research reports engineering staff’s reflections, learning outcomes and challenges through the PBL pedagogical training programme. Suggestions are proposed to optimize PBL training programmes for engineering staff and promote curriculum change processes.