Design Thinking as a Strategy to Inculcate Problem-Based Learning (PBL) in Undergraduate Education Across South Asian Universities

Abstract

The Bologna declaration states that, "successful learning and studying in higher education should involve students in deep learning". However, a survey of faculty across institutes in Nepal and Bhutan highlights that the undergraduate students in engineering and management lack skills needed to be industry-ready. They face difficulty in getting employed after graduation and if placed, then struggle during their employment due to insufficient practical experience, lack of good communication skills and unawareness of larger socio-economic contexts. The Erasmus+ funded project, "Strengthening Problem-based learning in South Asian Universities"(PBL South Asia) is an endeavour to address these pressing concerns in education quality, employability and overall sustainable development of the region and to imbibe deep learning capabilities. Therefore, as an empirical study to clarify and in turn, inculcate PBL in South Asian undergraduate education, the young faculty of the inexperienced institutes from Nepal and Bhutan, alongside the students from the experienced institutes from India and Europe, were mentored by faculty and researchers from the latter to undertake multidisciplinary case studies. The strategy of 'Design Thinking' was employed to methodologically guide the cases and keep it consistently problem-based, i.e., the learning is driven by the problem with no one correct solution. Results showed that the participants reflected improvement in problem-solving skills and increased motivation, apart from enhanced collaboration and improved communication ability. Based on these findings, further development of curricula to imbibe PBL in its existing courses and guidelines to train the trainers for implementation of the same, is currently in progress.

Design for the real world: a problem-based learning approach

“…As a process, it is rooted in constructivism and the overarching approach has been collated into12 steps (as in Figure 1). (Acharya, et al, 2021a). Acharya, et al (2021a) highlights that the top constraints with respect to the context are; heavy syllabi as per University-directed lesson plans that restricts time for practicals and less number of co-instructors to help guide practicals.…”

“…(Acharya, et al, 2021a). Acharya, et al (2021a) highlights that the top constraints with respect to the context are; heavy syllabi as per University-directed lesson plans that restricts time for practicals and less number of co-instructors to help guide practicals. In addition, it was found that these faculty members and administrators were unfamiliar with PBL pedagogy and how to imbibe the same into their respective subjects/courses, and therefore, a two-pronged solution was devised to empower them with Capacity and Resources, as articulated below in (Figure 2).…”

“…The immersion into the PBL methodology was inculcated through Design Thinking and led to the development of a 'PBL schema' that entailed the stages of exploration/identification to identify the 'right problem', followed by conceptualisation/ideation, consolidation of solution and selection of final concept for Presentation. To do so, the following two capacity-building exercises were undertaken: o Experiential Program comprising of case studies and workshops | August 2019 : A twoweek long program of 70 participants across 10 universities, aimed to introduce the concepts of PBL and familiarise with the practical aspects of conducting field study for problemsolving (Acharya, et. al, 2021a) ; o Course/curriculum Design Workshop | October 2019: A weeklong workshop of 30 participants, comprising of additional theoretical training and mentored course plan creation (Acharya, et.…”

“…(i) PBL Experiential Program with 70 participants over 2-weeks (Acharya, et al, 2021a) (ii) Course/Curriculum Design Workshop with 30 participants over 1 week (Acharya, et al, 2021a) (i) Handy PBL Best Practices Quick Guide (ii) MOOC of 9 Modules, with a printable Workbook & a PBL Impact Canvas o co-create (ii) online learning modules* akin to that of a MOOC, each consisting of short videos of 3-10 minutes on lesson lectures and demonstration of tools. These are supported with a printable Workbook to track the process and develop the solution, and a 'PBL Impact Canvas', a step-by-step guiding framework to engage in discussions, to identify and evaluate the impacts considered by the students in the project.…”

“…Problem-based Learning (PBL) is one such pedagogy that enables the development of various competences, i.e. knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes, through a learner-centred approach, and has been leveraged to build capacity across several beneficiary South Asian institutes of Higher Education over the tenure of the Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education (CBHE) project titled, "PBL SA -Strengthening Problembased learning in South Asian Universities" (Acharya, et al, 2021 a, b;Acharya, et al 2023;Jurelionis, et al, 2023). Along with several capacity-building, experiential activities that were conducted, various supplementary resources were also co-created to support the learners and to inculcate PBL through dissemination to other benefactors.…”