Case Study to Analyze the Impact of Multi-Course Project-Based Learning Approach on Education for Sustainable Development

Abstract

This work presents a multi-course project-based learning (MPL) approach implemented using two electrical engineering (EE) interdisciplinary undergraduate courses at Qatar University. Implementing an MPL approach helps in the development of critical thinking and collaborative decision-making skills. The attainment of these skills is also the outcome of education for sustainable development (ESD); the skills help students acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and values necessary to shape a sustainable future. The participating students’ worked on a design project, which was used to assess the fulfillment of a set of student learning outcomes (SLOs), focusing on engineering soft skills and project management skills. The skills include the ability to communicate effectively, to work collaboratively in a team, to think both critically and creatively, and to manage projects efficiently with realistic constraints and standards. The challenges of implementing the MPL method are the organization of pedagogical activities that are planned for each of the courses involved, the coordination of the materials delivered by each course, and the supervision of around 90 students per year performing the MPL method. The experience of MPL deployment in the EE program was rated using student surveys. It was assumed that the MPL approach would be beneficial to the students based on the instructors’ and students’ feedback from the same courses in previous years. This was verified using chi-square statistics of the survey results. The implementation of the MPL also helped in increasing the average marks scored by the students in the design project. Some interesting feedback, statistical analyses, and improvement actions are reported for future upgrades. This work also contributes to the MPL pragmatic body of knowledge by exploring a successful initiative and its outcomes, which can help in attaining the skills needed for ESD.

Students’ Innovation in Education for Sustainable Development—A Longitudinal Study on Interdisciplinary vs. Monodisciplinary Learning

“…Students' creativity and innovation are still unemployed resources in HESD [1,9]. Few studies have investigated the status quo of students' creativity within the field of SD [2,3] or their creativity skill development through HESD [4][5][6] or evaluated educational settings regarding their potential to enhance creativity in HESD [7][8][9]. However, students' innovation has so far been neglected.…”

“…However, the results also demonstrate that students struggled with their development in seeking opportunities, tolerating ambiguity, as well as evaluating different ideas. Khandakar, Chowdhury, Gonzales, Touati, Emadi, and Ayari [5] studied electrical engineering students participating in a multi-course interdisciplinary project-based learning ESD approach and found that almost all students were strongly convinced that their participation enhanced their creativity. Carbonell-Carrera, Saorin, Melian-Diaz, and Torre-Cantero [6] evaluated a creativity ESD workshop by analyzing engineering students' creative skill development with a preand post-test of performance in the individual task of solving a geometrical problem in sustainable modeling.…”

“…The results also reveal that group problems, such as poor project management, a lack of supervision support, ineffective communication, and students' risk aversion, are barriers to a creative climate in HESD. As both monodisciplinary [4] and interdisciplinary project-based learning [5] enhance students' creativity skills, both pedagogies might foster students' application of creativity to generate innovation in student teams in HESD.…”

“…Due to their access to different discipline-based knowledge and methods, interdisciplinary student teams might be more innovative than monodisciplinary student teams. Since both monodisciplinary [4] and interdisciplinary project-based learning [5] enhance students' creativity skills, a comparison of both pedagogies might add insight into students' innovation. Because research into team diversity and innovation has yielded mixed results and has mostly been limited to studies with a cross-sectional design [19], the present study takes a longitudinal approach to investigating whether students are more innovative in interdisciplinary project-based learning or in monodisciplinary project-based learning and how their innovation develops over time.…”

Fostering Environmental Awareness with Smart IoT Planters in Campuses

“…Project-Based-Learning (PBL) is a framework for teaching and learning organized activities to create a product that is becoming more popular in the last years [22][23][24][25]. Within this framework, students working in groups strive for solutions to complex problems by asking and clarifying questions, debating ideas, making predictions collecting and analysing data, communicating their findings to others and creating artefacts [26].…”