Project Based Engineering School (PBES) An implementation experience with very promising results

Abstract

The Polytechnic School of the Universidad Europea de Madrid (UEM) started during 2012/2013 its "Project Based Engineering School" (PBES). This consists on the application of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology in all its degrees. The students developed in each academic year a comprehensive project covering partially the content of several courses; different teachers were involved in each project. How was made the implementation of this process is explained in this paper. Positive results of the first evaluation were obtained at the end of the academic year that include further development of key skills, a deeper understanding of the specific skills and an increasing on motivation of students and teachers. There were also identified some areas for improvement. This article will show the results (both qualitative and quantitative) obtained after the year of experience and the conclusions after analyzing them.