Abstract:

The irruption of the so-called Industry 4.0 demands soft-skilled professionals who are able to face the huge challenges of the new millennium. To address this need, Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) is aimed at helping students to face, collaboratively with their professors, real challenges of organizations to provide workable solutions. Since Apple, over a decade ago, proposed and defined a new approach to teaching, Challenge-Based Learning has spread out over not only secondary but also higher education.

An action-research project on “Challenge-Based Learning in the classroom” was developed by a group of five instructors from Universidad Europea that implemented CBL on five subjects in the Business and Political Science areas during the 2018/19 course. Our study has used both quantitative and qualitative research techniques. On the one hand, we conducted a questionnaire survey to a sample of 73 students enrolled in courses that implemented the CBL methodology. The students pointed out a number of advantages derived from the application of the CBL methodology, notably the exposition to real global problems and the development of innovation, creativity and collaborative work skills. Additionally, they also considered the CBL methodology a good way to prepare them for working life, as it allows to put theoretical knowledge into practice. Of note, these advantages identified by the participants are closely related to the skills included in the syllabus of the courses. On the other hand, to complement the data provided by the survey to instructors, a research diary was used to collect information regarding the challenges and reflections raised along the whole process. This work describes the inconveniences and difficulties that the instructors faced when they carried out CBL for the first time. In addition, we report the solutions chosen by the instructors as well as the results attained in terms of satisfaction with the learning experience by both instructors and students.

Keywords:

Challlenge Based Learning, Educational innovation, Learning and teaching methodologies, Critical thinking, Creative thinking, Experiential learning.