Transformation to problem and project based learning

During the last ten years, Engineering Education has undergone tremendous changes. A lot of these changes were caused by external and internal factors. The external factors such as government policy concerning resources, and educational and quality assurance policies are rather simple to describe. However, the internal factors at the institutional level may be unknown. Institutions have developed many different pedagogical models, using very different strategies for development.

Nearly all Danish engineering institutions have implemented elements of Problem Based and Project Based Learning (PBL). Particularly five Engineering University Colleges have undergone changes towards PBL. The Pedagogical Network for Danish Engineering Education (IPN) has been one of the central agents in the change processes for engineering education in Denmark. IPN has been responsible for staff and faculty development at the engineering university colleges and has been running the co-ordination of the exchange of experiences among all Danish engineering institutions.

However, it is not the same PBL-model that has been developed at the five different institutions - in fact, very different PBL-models have been developed on the basis of very different development processes.

In this article, I will shortly present the results from two case studies. The results underpin the hypothesis that only top-down decisions at institutional level together with a pool of motivated staff will cause changes at a system level. A bottom-up approach with decentralized development at departments leads to a variation within the institution, but it might be difficult to develop curriculum models at system level.