Abstract:

This research builds on an innovative approach to the teaching of two curricular units at a graduate program in a higher education institution. It addresses the process of development and implementation of project-based learning context that had at its core a real business challenge proposed by a company. In this challenge, different company stakeholders, as well as stakeholders in the wider community, were strategically involved from the outset of the project. With this approach, the community was brought to the school, becoming part of the project. Thus, there was a strategic blurring of the school’s institutional boundaries, where students became co-creators of their learning path and were enabled to construct discovery-led competences in close contact with the reality outside school’s walls.

Importantly, the school was also placed in the community by the way the active work of teachers and students became deeply intertwined with the work of the company’s stakeholders and the ones at the larger community. The school’s institutional logics spilled out to the community in a transfiguration with the business’ logics of the company that was involved in the project this research addresses.

The methodology of this study followed a participatory research design. The authors are teachers that were involved in the interdisciplinary teaching project that this research addresses. They contributed to its development and then closely followed the unfolding of the project. The data set consists of diaries with field notes, taken independently by the researchers; documents used in the project; audio transcriptions from a workshop and diverse activities in the classroom; and the students' outputs.

This research contributes to current practices and the development of innovative methodologies based on Problem-Based Learning. In particular, the results of this research detail the different dynamics that unfold as the involvement with a company and the wider community is created and gets strengthened over time, presenting a fine-grained view on the learning processes and how these can be supported in order to develop graduate students’ competences.

Keywords:

Problem-based learning, community, learning by doing, collaboration.