Abstract:

Challenge-based Learning (CBL) is a transformative pedagogical practice for change leadership in education that leads students to solve industry and societal problems, directs the course of their learning, and puts the teacher in the coach role. It cultivates an active and authentic learning environment that requires students' creative input, collaboration, and community involvement. CBL was co-developed by Apple in 2008 in a project called 'Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow'. CBL is a flexible learning model that, over the past 10 years, has been widely applied and tested at various levels of education, from elementary school to the baccalaureate level. CBL also has implications at a macro level as it links educational practice to the development of professional skills and a greater awareness of broader societal and global issues to drive change. University of Stavanger (UiS) and the European Consortium of Innovative University project, consisting of 13 universities, have been developing and practising CBL since 2019. In this paper, we will present the implementation of CBL in engineering education by UiS in three progressively more extensive activities since June 2023, which are also practical examples where we progressively introduce the CBL method in engineering education to students, adult learners and educators.

The first activity was a short CBL workshop for engineering educators in Jun 23 at the CDIO conference in Trondheim, Norway. This workshop aimed to introduce the implementation of the CBL pedagogical approach in the structure of a course within the CBL framework. The participants learned how to implement the CBL framework in engineering courses by experiencing it themselves and working in Teams by working on different challenges in engineering education. 'Curriculum Agility' was chosen as the challenge as it is a highly topical issue within the higher education sector that has the potential to generate a rich and creative discussion.

The second activity was a two-day CBL workshop conducted in Sep 23 to 1st year engineering master students in marine and offshore technology. The challenge defined was 'Sustainable offshore field development' and was held in an MSc course 'Offshore field development'. This course is traditionally taught using only lectures, i.e., the information flow is mainly one-directional from the lecturer. The students were tasked to reduce the cost, installation time, and environmental footprint of the subsea equipment used in the offshore field. The students were introduced to the CBL methodology and various problem-solving techniques, such as the fishbone technique and six thinking hats. The students were simulated to work on a multidisciplinary challenge in diverse project-based teams with multi-directional information flow.

The third activity is the feasibility study of a practical pedological method for efficient retraining/education of experienced engineers in offshore wind. This nine-month green transition project started in Nov 23 and was granted at UiS. In this project, we want to significantly shorten the time required to retrain/educate experienced engineers by providing an efficient and effective framework through CBL for learning while solving real-world offshore wind challenges. We believe the approach will allow the experienced engineer to gain deep subject area knowledge within the area they desire in offshore wind in an efficient manner instead of spending 300 hours on a 10 ETCS course.

Keywords:

Challenge-based learning, Engineering education, Industry-academia collaboration.