Academic works have indicated that didactic methods for teaching engineers fail to professionally prepare, despite international efforts to create competent engineering students. Indeed, studies on teaching in engineering in general, particularly in civil engineering, throughout the world are scarce or in their incipient stages, at least in relation and comparison to the material dedicated to the subject by mathematicians. In order to improve teaching and learning in engineering, the aim of this paper was to discuss if certain aspects of the modern technique used in mathematics could be applied to teaching in engineering, more specifically the problem-solving methodology, since engineering teaching lacks a well-developed self-epistemology.