Abstract:

In recent years, institutions of higher education have been trying to provide students with both hard skills, namely cognitive knowledge and professional skills (Vogler et al., 2018), and soft skills, such as problem-solving and teamwork (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006). An important contribution to these is providing students with opportunities to participate in real problem-solving and knowledge construction in authentic professional contexts. One way to achieve this approach is through project-based learning (PjBL). The paper will present an instance of project-based learning in a specific degree – Technologies of Design and Multimedia (TDM). The project was connected to the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Polytechnic Institute of Viseu. The challenge was to develop an interactive timeline that would represent the history of the institution in the cities of Viseu and Lamego. The process of integrating that challenge in the program was managed in one of the courses titled “Interactive Contents” as Project-Based Learning since it was a learning process in which students were engaged in working on an authentic project and the development of a product (Chen & Yang, 2019). The students developed their proposals in close communication with the clients and with several rounds of feedback and development. This paper reports on that process looking into records and artifacts produced by students, teachers, and clients throughout the semester. Semi-structured interviews with the participants (teaching staff, students, and clients) complement the data. The content analysis is guided by the objective of describing a process of project-based learning in the area of Design and Multimedia including the voices of several participants. The results were analyzed considering Krajcik and Shin’s (2014) six hallmarks of Project-Based Learning: a driving question, the focus on learning goals, participation in educational activities, collaboration among students, the use of scaffolding technologies, and the creation of tangible artifacts. The creation of artifacts that solve authentic problems distinguishes Project-Based Learning from other student-centered pedagogies and requires learners to work together to find solutions to authentic problems in the process of knowledge integration, application, and construction (Helle, Tynjälä, & Olkinuora, 2006). The specificity of this feature in the area of Design and Multimedia will also be addressed.

Keywords:

Pedagogy, project based-learning, higher education, design and multimedia, students' perspectives.