Integration of Engineering Practice into Curriculum - 25 Years of Experience with Problem Based Learning

Transcription

1 Integration of Engineering Practice into Curriculum - 25 Years of Experience with Problem Based Learning Flemming K. Fink, Electronics and Information Technology, Aalborg University Fredrik Bajers Vej 7A1, DK-9220 Aalborg Ø, DENMARK fkf@kom.auc.dk Abstract: In 1974 Aalborg University () introduced the project organised problem based learning concept. The experience since then has proven this to be an important innovation in higher education. This presentation will focus on the experiences from implementing this pedagogical concept in engineering education. The main part of the curriculum is engineering project work, which is discussed, including results from a resent evaluation of electrical and electronic engineering in Denmark. An international board evaluated all Danish engineering programs within Electronic and Electrical Engineering (five schools and two universities) and published their report in June This evaluation shows in very clear terms the superiority of project organised problem based learning compared to more traditional learning strategies. INTRODUCTION In 1974 Aalborg University was established and at the same time project organised problem based learning was introduced into Danish engineering education. From the very beginning the key element has been project work. On each semester students must carry out a major project approx. 500 hours of workload per student. With groups of 4-6 students this means men-hours per project. This calls for a high degree of co-operation with industry to find real-life engineering problems to solve. Each problem based project work comprises problem analysis and problem definition in engineering terms, problem solving, and documentation in terms of a report or a scientific paper and poster. was established by integrating existing schools such as two engineering schools and a school for social workers. None of these schools were research based at that time, and therefore it was a dramatic shift for the staff at these schools, especially concerning professional conditions the pedagogical concept was new, and they had to start doing research. was based on the background of a strong co-operation between all parts of the community industry, labour organisations, politicians, etc. aiming at strengthening the northern district of Denmark. Until then the engineering schools only conducted teaching of Bachelor of Engineering Degrees (3½ years programs) and the only place in Denmark to obtain a Master Degree in Engineering (5 years program) was at the Polytechnic High school now the Technical University of Denmark (D) in Copenhagen. CURRICULUM From the beginning in 1974 the aim was to incorporate both a Bachelor program and a Master program in engineering with a common first part of the curriculum. Approximately 50% of the students were expected to graduate with a Bachelor Degree, but the fact is that at least 90% of the students proceed to the Master Degree level. Therefor only the Master program will be considered here. Project organised problem based learning as it is implemented at is described in the book The Aalborg Experiment project innovation in university education [1]. The main principles can be described as in figure 1. Literature PROBLEM ANALYSIS Lectures PROBLEM SOLVING Figure 1: Principles of project organised problem solving [1] Group Studies REPORT/ DOCUMENTA TION Tutorials Field Studies Experiments The curriculum is organised in semesters 10 semesters leading to a M.Sc.E.E. (Master of Science in Electronic Engineering) degree organised in a very deterministic structure with a very well prescribed output as shown in figure 2. One semester is a 20-week program at the university. Each semester has its own theme such as Analogue and Digital Electronics (3 rd semester), Microprocessor Systems (4 th semester), Real-Time Communications Systems (5 th semester) etc. The project work approx. 500 hours of workload per student, must be within this theme, and some project-related courses are offered to the students. In addition, the students must take some mandatory courses such as mathematics, computer 11a2-7

2 1. sem. 2. sem. Basic Study Year - Technology and Science 3. sem. 4. sem. 5. sem. Computer Engineering (D-sector) Electronics and Electrical Engineering (E-sector) 6. sem. 7. sem. 8. sem. 9. sem. 10. sem. Softwareengineering (F-studyboard) Informatics Signal Processing Control Engineering Telecommunications Electrical Energy Technology Choose between a number of theses, study periods abroad during 9th semester, as an alternative to 9th semester long duration Electronicsproduction (M-studyboard) Figure 2: Structure of the Electronic, Electrical and Computer Engineering Education at Aalborg University science, and circuit theory. The load for coursework will normally be another 400 hours each semester. This organisation of the curriculum implies that students learn to apply the theoretical courses from the very beginning and on the other hand that mathematics and other fundamental courses are spread out on several semesters in due time before the theories are needed. At the end of each semester the students must pass an oral examination based on a report of up to 150 pages documenting their project plus HW and SW. This examination can take up to six hours on group basis resulting in individual marks. In addition to this the students must pass individual examinations in the mandatory courses. DYNAMIC CURRICULUM The structure of the curriculum is fundamentally progressive and in addition each step in this progression implies a large degree of flexibility. Within a specific theme projects can and do change from year to year. A theme like Stochastic Signal Processing will involve a great variation of engineering problems and as the projects selected will be a combination of 1) proposals from industry, 2) interests among students, and 3) interest among supervising staff etc., new problems will always be in focus. Therefore even though the purpose and the content of the theme is well prescribed using Bloom s taxonomy of learning depth [2] the curriculum is very flexible and can follow the development in technology and integrate the application of new research results. The semester-organised programme has proven to be a very dynamic organisation for implementing new engineering applications in the project work. This means; it is a good tool for co-operation with industry and for updating the professional content of the curriculum Given the facts that: students prefer real life engineering problems compared to hypothetical, academic problems from professors, a group of six students represents up to 3000 men hours of project work per semester, 11a2-8

3 normally, enterprises have ideas or engineering problems they would like to have investigated or solved, research groups can define sub-projects in their research suitable for the themes, enterprises want to initiate co-operations with students in time before they graduate, students are (normally) not paid for their project work, a great variety of projects at all professional levels will always be accessible, and co-operations between university (students, researchers) and industry will increase beneficially to all partners. During the first 25 years of the existence of Aalborg University at least 20 enterprises mainly in the area of mobile telephony, are established in the area around Aalborg City and University [3]. The neighbourhood is therefor often called Mobilicom Valley a good proof of the fact that the intention to establish a university was a way to strengthen the development of the area. It can be claimed that this educational system is innovative as such. RESULTS OF THE PEDAGOGICAL MODEL The pedagogical model centred on problem based project organised group work is evaluated to strengthen the educational system essentially. The problem based part the Problem Based Learning concept allows the students to develop excellent analytical skills and they add up with good experiences in coping with and attacking complex engineering problems. In addition to a thorough theoretical insight the students become experienced in applying the theoretical elements from the lecturing in practical engineering problem solving. The group based project organised team working is also a very important element in the learning process. It increases the students skills in professional argumentation, presentation of own proposals for solutions, and critical evaluation of proposals from the other students. Preparation of documentation in form of reports, scientific papers and posters together with the oral presentation is exercising the students for future production of written material and preparation and performances of oral presentations. Because of the size of the projects the students get some insight in combining engineering material with applications, and they get used to seeking and delimiting new information/knowledge on their own. Engineers with experience from problem based learning can be productive in research and industrial development immediately after graduation. They know how to sort information in what is needed now and what is nice to know later. Newborn engineers from traditional technical universities ask more questions about what to do they are not used to applying their academic knowledge on solving engineering problems. THE PROJECT ORGANISED PROBLEM BASED LEARNING SIATION Students at Aalborg University are organised in groups of up to six members. Each group is assigned an 18 m 2 office which becomes their second home. This room is their base, in which they have discussions about the project, they carry out designs, simulations, communications etc. using the available software tools via the PC/terminal in the room, they drink coffee, and they put pictures on the wall etc. Another important function of the project group is the learning process after each lecture of approx. two hours, where the students are expected to go to their group-rooms to solve some problems, simulations etc. based on the content of the lecture. This takes another two hours where the lecturer walks from group to group to facilitate the process. Being part of a team the students learn how to cooperate solving major engineering problems. They learn how to deal with professional discussions in situations like problem definition and argumentation for their choice of solution. Students learn how to argue about and explain in scientific terms what they believe is the right solution it is not enough to claim you are right, you must be able to convince other group members. Argumentation is a god way of learning. They learn how to organise teamwork, and learn that a team does not work if everybody does not do their part of the job. In this way the students assimilate an attitude to work differently from students doing traditional university study individually. In return to this the students will get the feeling of safe social surroundings, the other students expect them to show up every morning, and if they do not appear, they will probably be contacted to find out what is wrong. The teamwork also has the effect that students push each other. Of course the students go for solving the problem - engineering is problem solving, and they define some sub-tasks for each member of the group. To succeed with your task, you have to read the book, seek out some extra information, read some scientific papers, search the Internet, do some programming or whatever is needed. And as no student want to end up with a bad solution, they work very hard with their project. The project is the key element in the curriculum applying the theoretical courses in problem solving and via the project being able to reflect on their professional work. Each project group is assigned a supervisor or facilitator. The facilitator meets with the group approximate once a week to discuss the progress of the 11a2-9

4 project, to guide them back on the track if necessary and to read and discuss drafts for their documentation. It is very important that the facilitator is aware of not being a problem solver, but a facilitator. At the end of the semester he is responsible for the final examination of the project together with external examiners appointed by the minister of education. Supervising a group of students in engineering education is a very professionally demanding job - lecturing is much easier. Giving a lecture the professor can be well prepared, and he decides what to talk about. Questions must always be relevant to the topic in order to be answered. Discussions with a group of students trying do define an engineering problem or trying to find the right solution, can lead to a great diversity of questions. Solving engineering problems calls for interdisciplinary knowledge which is why the professor supervising the students must learn to admit his professional limitations and call for colleagues to assist. Months NORM Figure 3: Average Duration of Study discussed in the Study Board, who is responsible for the content and quality of the curriculum. The Study Board (5 professors and 5 students) is disposable of all resources for teaching, and if a professor does not fulfil the requirements, the Study Board is free to request another professor or a person from outside the university to take over. This is implemented if necessary. An international committee evaluated all Danish engineering programs within Electronic and Electrical Engineering (five schools and two universities) and published their report in June 1998 [4]. The international committee based their evaluation on self-evaluation reports from each institution [5], a questionnaire among graduates from each school or university and interviews with representatives from industry-leaders [6] and they visited each engineering school/university. The overall conclusion of this evaluation is that the professional quality of the Danish engineering education is excellent compared to the need from the Danish industry and compared to the engineering schools/universities in the Nordic countries and internationally [4]. For the simplicity this paper will focus on the master degree only, and the background material here involves answers from 100 graduates from Aalborg University () and 92 from a traditional university (). This evaluation shows in very clear terms the superiority of problem based learning compared to more traditional learning strategies. Results from the evaluation will be discussed in the next sections. EVALUATION OF THE PRIORITY OF SKILLS As a result we see that, in average, 80% of the students entering the university succeeds in finishing their study, and most of them manage to do it in the nominated time (se Figure 3). Compared to a traditional university () we see that problem based learning improves the learning effect twofold: 1) a completion rate of 80 is rather high, and 2) an average completion time close to the nominated is unusual. One can say that the students both learn and socialise professionally. Learning by discussion, argumentation and applying is a strong way of learning, both for the bright students and the less bright. We find no correlation between the entrance level of academic skills and the completion probability. ASSESSMENT OF THE OUTPUT The capability and the quality of the educational system are evaluated within the educational system itself. We have established an internal quality assurance programme. Each semester the students and the teachers are asked to evaluate every course and project. This evaluation is Graduates from Aalborg University () were asked about how important they judged several skills to be, and what priority they found these skills were given in their education at. For comparison the same questions were asked graduates from a traditional university in Denmark (). Very clear differences are seen [6] regarding the skills in - communication (written and oral), - ability to define engineering problems, - ability to carry out a total project, - carrying out technical development and research, - co-operating with people with different educational and cultural background, and - including social consequences of the technical solution, all in favour of the problem based learning. These skills can be recognised as results of the pedagogical concept. All these skills are trained in the group based projects, and as they are very important for engineers in their professional career, graduates from are better 11a2-10

5 prepared for their first job after graduation. Only one of the skills in question is given higher priority at the the ability to work independent. This does not imply that graduates from are unable to work independently, but you cannot at the same time put high priority to both team work and independence, those are complementary priorities. On the other hand you must be able to work independently if you will succeed in doing your part of the teamwork. More of the industrial representatives interviewed point out that skills within presentation and communication are still more important because of the project organised working form in most modern enterprises [6]. In the interviews it is estimated that.the project oriented concept used at Aalborg University is an attractive model for future electrical and electronic engineering education [6]. EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT EDUCATIONAL METHODS Graduates were also asked about their profit from different educational situations and the combinations of these. In the case of the traditional technical university 40% were satisfied or very satisfied, whereas 60% of the graduates from Aalborg University were satisfied or very satisfied. If we go deeper into details, it was found [6] that graduates from the, who did not attend problem based learning find that group based project organised and team based work should be given a higher priority. In addition to this they find that lectures should be given a lower priority. It is also important to notice that even graduates from who attended a high degree of project organised learning still find that this could be given a higher priority and that they still find lectures less important for the learning process [6]. SDENTS WORK LOAD Evaluation of the students workload during their master education is given in Table 1. Although approximately 75% of the graduates from both universities found the workload appropriate, it is interesting to se that none from but 11% from the found the workload too low. 12 % from the found the workload too high and none found it way too high. Graduates from Aalborg University answered 18% too high and 5% way too high. These figures are fully in accordance with the behaviour we can observe among students at Aalborg University. As mentioned before, no student wants to end up with a poor result in the problem solving or a poor documentation. Therefore many students work much harder than they are expected to. The harder they work with their project the more they learn if they find the workload too low, they only have themselves to blame. N=92 M.Sc.E.E. n=100 Total n=192 Way too low Too low Suitable Too high Way too high Don t know Total Table 1: Evaluation of the workload during the master education (in percentage) [6] The nominated workload for students doing problem based learning at Aalborg University is 45 hours per week distributed with 36 hours per week at the university and 9 hours of homework. In accordance with the judgement of the workload mentioned above students at spend more hours on homework than students at the traditional university (see Table 2). 41% spends more than 16 hours per week on homework, whereas this is the case for 32% of the students at a. For comparison one must remember that students at traditional universities normally do not spend 36 hours per week at the university. This on the other hand also indicates that students implementing problem based learning run the risk of getting so involved in their study that they forget to or cannot find resources to involve in the outside world. N=92 M.Sc.E.E. n=100 Total n=192 None hours hours hours hours hours > 25 hours Don t know Total Table 2: Number of hours spent on homework and preparation (in percentage) [6]. 11a2-11

6 OVERALL SATISFACTION Motivation and satisfaction with the study environment are very important pre-conditions to learn. The graduates were asked to express their level of overall satisfaction with their study, on a five-point scale from very unsatisfied (1) to very satisfied (5). This ended up with the result that 73% of the graduates evaluated the level 4 and 5 compared to 96% of the graduates from the Problem Based Learning programme at. n=92 M.Sc.E.E. n=100 Total n=192 Very unsatisfactory Unsatisfactory Neither/nor Satisfactory Very satisfactory Don t know Total REFERENCES [1] F. Kjersdam and S. Enemark, The Aalborg Experiment project innovation in university education, Aalborg University Press, 1994 [2] B. S. Blomm et.al., Taxanomi of Educational Objectives. The Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain, New York, David McKay Company, Inc., 1972 [3] NORCOM: [4] Danish Centre for Quality Assurence and Evaluation of Higher Education, Evaluation of the electroengineering programmes, Statens Informations, 1998 (in Danish) [5] F. K. Fink et.al., The Electro-Engineering Educations at Aalborg University - Self evaluation report, Aalborg University, June 1997 (in Danish) [6] DMA-Research, Graduate analysis and Customer analysis, Annex I and annex II to [4], August 1997 (in Danish) Table 3: Satisfaction with the education in general among M.Sc.E.E. (in percentage) [6] CONCLUSION Problem Based Learning as implemented at Aalborg University is evaluated to strengthen the educational system essentially. In this learning environment the students develop excellent analytical skills and they end up with good experiences in coping with and attacking complex engineering problems. In addition to a thorough theoretical insight the students become experienced in applying the theoretical elements from the lectures in practical engineering problem solving. Teamwork is a very important element in the learning process. It increases the students skills in professional argumentation, presentation of own proposals for solutions, and critical evaluation of proposals from the other students. Preparation of documentation in form of reports, scientific papers and posters together with the oral presentation is exercising the students for future production of written material and preparation and performance of oral presentations. During the 25 years of existence the number of graduating M.Sc.E.E. from Aalborg University has increased from 0 to 50% of the total number in Denmark. An increasing number of graduates are employed abroad and an increasing number of international enterprises establish a department in the neighbourhood of the university. Problem Based Learning as such is attracting a great deal of interest and implemented in many different ways we feel happy about our model. 11a2-12