A PBL experience with second-year students of Industrial Engineering

Abstract

In the last years, teaching methods significantly evolved. Instead of traditional teaching, where the professor is the primary source of knowledge, nowadays, student-centered approaches, where they actively participate in their learning, have been increasingly used. These methods allow increasing the students' motivation, interest, and engagement in the learning process. There are different ways of implementing active learning, for instance, through group work, case studies, debates, and problem-based learning, among others. In the present work, a case study of an active learning approach is presented. A new curricular unit was created and integrated into the Bachelor in Industrial Engineering of the University of Minho in the academic year of 2021/2022. This combined four different curricular units, Complements of Applied Statistics, Numerical Methods, Information Systems and Technology, and Operational Research and Optimization, that are already part of the study plan. The main aim of this initiative was to provide students with a learning environment that encourages investigation, critical thinking, teamwork, problem-solving skills, and hands-on activities. This way, students have a more holistic and integrated understanding of each engineering subject and its relevance to the real world. The classes consisted of active discussions between the professor and students about the challenges and doubts they have in the work development and sharing ideas on how they can accomplish it. Each group selected a theme and obtained real databases about the topic from the internet. Then, they had to treat the data and combine the different subjects. In general, the outputs were very encouraging and, in some cases, surpassed expectations. Excellent works were developed, and it was thrilling to see how bachelor students embraced this challenge and were able to work on real data in such a short space of time. Furthermore, students found this learning initiative more engaging and interesting than traditional teaching. From the