Sustainable engineering master module – insights from three cohorts of European engineering team

Abstract

Mobility and transnational migration are current social developments among the population of the European Union. These developments in both society-at-large and companies, linked to the challenges of sustainability, lead to new requirements for working in the European Union. Teaching and learning in higher education needs to adapt to these requirements. As a result, new and innovative teaching and learning practices in higher education should provide competencies for transnational teamwork in the curriculum of tomorrow's engineers in order to ensure their competitiveness in the job market. A transnational project-oriented teaching and learning framework, which provides the future key competencies for young engineers was implemented in the course European Engineering Team (EET). Engineering students from four countries participated in a new project-based course that focused on the development of innovative and sustainable products and opportunities. The goal of this paper is to present results and lessons learnt from three cohorts of EET.

Towards Active Evidence-Based Learning in Engineering Education: A Systematic Literature Review of PBL, PjBL, and CBL

“…In the context where the teams of students will develop the project and the tools they may need to implement the plan, the products also need to be taken into account [98]. The process may involve various approaches, combining activities in a university setting as well as online collaboration [51,99]; industrial partners are active participants in formulating problems for PjBl tasks [99,100]; technologies involved and manipulated provide the opportunity for students to make authentic decisions in various contexts [22,93].…”

“…Moreover, teachers should expect that students might feel afraid and find it difficult to handle uncertainty and self-learning [68,131]. Furthermore, if the course is delivered in a new format, especially via distance, students are given clear instructions and explanations on how such more complex learning will take place, because despite the promises of a potentially more engaging format, students still need motivation to study through new media and ICTs [99]. Studies report that students lacking digital literacy skills did not feel motivated to engage in technology-enhanced learning because they were not given the necessary skill set to do it [132].…”