Abstract:

New technologies for engineering education require to find new systems to transmit them to students. Collaboration with companies is also a key asset to develop them. Elements of problem based learning (PBL) and learning by doing are methods that were used during project development in Glocal Summer Courses in “Erasmus + KA203 - Strategic Partnerships for Higher Education” project: “GLOCAL-Innovation future engineers' training for contemporary city's problems” (2019-1-PL01-KA203-065654).

We will present here some of the final results related to this teaching methodologies, obtained in Glocal 1 and Glocal 2 Summer Schools. Both courses were designed to have in each of them 8 teams of students, with one member from each of the universities participating in this Glocal project: Politechnika Bialostocka (BUT), from Poland, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), from Spain and Klaipedos Valstybine Kolegija (KVK), from Lithuania. Both courses were realised in face-to-face (first part in Bialystok or in Klaipeda, 2 weeks) and in blended form [1], with some E-learning activities (3 weeks) and final face-to-face activities (2 weeks in Madrid, in September 2022, for both courses) that included lectures, laboratories practices and visits to firms and institutions.

Those activities have created significant challenges [2]. The universities organizers had to develop the teaching process, coordinating all the participants, teachers and professionals, as well as the schedule of teaching during summer schools for students. Teachers and researchers had to prepare innovative teaching materials including new books and a specific syllabus for this courses, developed for Glocal project. Students had to work in interdisciplinary, international teams, solving the problems of the project they have to develop using elements of the methodology of problem based learning (PBL) and of learning by doing. Firms and institutions, in cooperation with universities, had to create the frame for their collaboration activities.

The final activities of Glocal project have provided objective benefits to each of the participants. Universities will be able to include an innovative syllabus to their teaching offer, not only for the consortium of the universities cooperating in this project, as it will be available for free download in Erasmus website. Teachers participating in this project have increased their teaching skills, collaborating with their colleagues from other European Countries. Students have increased not only their technical knowledge, but also their preparation for professional practice as new engineers and their soft skills. Firms and institutions, including some local administrations, will have new ideas to solve European cities problems, with the 3 books published with the research done for this Glocal project.

References:
[1] P.C. Izquierdo Gracia, M.A. Flórez de la Colina, D. Gawryluk, K. Rawski, W. Matys, J.A. Capitan, I. Bach, D.A. Krawczyk, D. Jankauskienė, V. Vaičekauskienė, I. Kuklys, Blended learning as a new methodology for sharing knowledge and collaborating to create a small urban object. ICERI 2022 Proceedings, pp. 3415-3423. IATED, 2022
[2] D. Gawryluk, M.A. Flórez de la Colina, P.C. Izquierdo Gracia, D. Jankauskienė, D. A. Krawczyk, E. Brezgytė. Developing a challenge: the design of green bus stops as a tool for international and interdisdiplinary collaboration in face-to-face summer schools. ICERI 2022 Proceedings, pp. 3341-3351. IATED, 2022

Keywords:

Problem based learning (PBL), Learning by doing, STEM Education Experiences, Curriculum Design and Innovation, University-Industry Collaboration.