Abstract:

University in general is an innovative and entrepreneurial environment by setting of higher-order skills taught in order to identify and find the knowledge needed to solve a practical problem. This paper presents a continuous field research that has used quantitative and qualitative tools for exploring students’ progress in the affective and the cognitive domains. The aim of this work is to prepare students better for the social and collaborative learning required in the 21st century real-life innovative environment. The main objective of the paper is focused on the compatibility assessment of projects in the education environment with the real evaluation of European Commission HORIZON2020 projects that students acquire competence through the project development in real practice. In order to extract students and their teachers from the on-going failure, and to promote students cognitively and actively, new procedure was taken: defining significant goals for the students as well as for the teachers, changing the learning environment, carrying out original projects taking advantage of the students’ higher order of competences, special skills and abilities, and changing assessment methods for creative project-based learning activities in a flexible environment. The implementation of a new “Creative Project-based Concept” (CPBC) has proven to work well method for elevating key competences and creating flexible learning environments. The paper main benefit is a new creative project-based concept evaluation taxonomy model of engineering students’ scaffold knowledge elements, significant findings and recommendations. The innovative instrument is based on standardized “Project Evaluation Report” (PER) model with the new original taxonomy to identify and reflect on the students´ competences outcomes of learning experiences during periodical workshops to examine the flexible environment helpfulness of project-based learning and to explore how creative project enhances deep learning. Based on focus to the experimental data of the perspective engineering program from the period of 2015-2018, we document the challenges to infusing project implementation and evaluation methodology compatible with HORIZON2020 projects to increase the quality of engineering students’ competences across the learning concept innovation. The research tools were: analysis of students’ modules outcomes, observations of class activities, interviews with students and teachers, results in the partial exams, and PER assessment of individual students’ projects. The findings indicate that scientific and technological projects elevated students’ self-motivation and activities at all levels and achieved significant cognitive and affective learning. Furthermore, the results of principal novelty has also outlined the goals in the arguments to collaborate and redefine competences and technological literacy using specific disciplinary requirements while incorporating active learning strategies and learning practices for building of instruments to increase the quality of engineering study. Taken together, designed concept to elevate students´ competences via creative project to prevent higher order taxonomy gaps and ensure these effective problem solving and decision making capabilities are more effective as likely than reproductive practices to report increased students creativity, activity and cooperation attributes and teachers self-possession and righteousness via PER assessment.

Keywords:

Higher education, key competences, creative project, assessment, taxonomy model, project evaluation report.