PBL in Engineering

Problem-based learning is a pedagogical strategy widely applied in many universities worldwide with the purpose of improving the learning outcome of the students who become the center of the process.It should be clear that PBL is not about solving problems but learning by doing as the purpose of PBL is to work in a de-centered teacher environment, promoting students participation in decision making about their learning trajectories.Of course at the end students and teachers develop skills to understand and solve real problems, but not as the main purpose of PBL. To specify and summarize:

Basic operational structure:
PBL emphasizes on the development of students’ skills to design question.

Practice procedures:
i) Students start to wondering and questioning as they face the problems
ii) Students further study on the problems
iii) Emergence of extra questions
iv) Specify the scope of knowledge
v) Suggest a plan to get additional information
vi) Carry out essential researches
vii) Share the new knowledge
viii) Make the conclusions