Global PBL: Cross-cultural educational project for engineering students

Helena V.G. Navas, Hiroshi Hasegawa, Dai Watanabe, Anak Khantachawana, Anabela C. Alves

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

Project-Based Learning (PBL) has been the active learning methodology used in a Cross-Cultural Engineering Project (CEP) that it is an educational project between Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT) from Japan, NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA), Universidade NOVA de Lisboa from Portugal and King Mongkut's University of Technology, Thonburi (KMUTT) from Thailand. This partnership occurred since July 2017, so three successful editions were achieved. The editions last nine days and were held in mid-July. The venue of the event was the Caparica Campus of the NOVA School of Science and Technology (FCT NOVA). The hard core of course participants are students from SIT (Japan), KMUTT (Thailand) and FCT NOVA (Portugal). Students from the Chulalongkorn University (Chula. Univ.) and Chiang Mai University (CMU) from Thailand and from University of Navarra of Spain had also participated in some editions of the event. More than 100 students, 20 teaching assistants and 10 teachers were involved on this global PBL on the three editions. The students were organized in interdisciplinary and international four or five teams of different graduate and undergraduate years, of different universities. Each team had to work in a contemporary problem related with Ecology, Energy, Eco-tourism, Community development among others. This paper presents the results of such experience, pointing out the benefits for the students and for the teachers. A discussion about the competencies acquired by the students is presented. Some challenges are also addressed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)319-326
Number of pages8
JournalInternational Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education
Volume10
Publication statusPublished - 2020
Event12th International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education and 17th International Conference on Active Learning in Engineering Education, PAEE/ALE 2020 - Bangkok, Thailand
Duration: 2020 Aug 262020 Aug 28

Keywords

  • Competencies
  • Cross-cultural experience
  • Engineering education
  • Global PBL
  • Problem-solving skills

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Engineering(all)
  • Education

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