Abstract:

PBL+ is the acronym of Problem Based Learning Plus, which is a teaching-learning technique developed by the Teaching Innovation Group INGENIAQ from the University of León (Spain). PBL+ gathers different teaching-learning techniques including the PBL classical methodology, flipped classroom, evaluation through the use of rubrics and service-learning. PBL+ has been specifically developed for engineering courses, in order to achieve the competences related to the immersion of students into the business world. PBL+ was designed to be specifically applied in the practical activities associated with engineer lectures, i.e. it was not designed for the curricular or extra-curricular practices. With this methodology, the students get into direct contact with companies, facing a real problem. The collaboration of a commissioned person from the company is a key point to achieve the expected competences completely. Currently, PBL+ has been applied in two complete academic courses and tested 25 times involving more than 350 students from 10 different engineering degrees or masters. Therefore, the teaching group has gathered enough experience and data regarding the use of the PBL+ methodology, being possible at this moment to perform an assessment of results. This work describes a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, explaining successful cases and learned lessons. COVID19 pandemic burst into the Universities and involved the adoption of solutions to shift from a face-to-face teaching-learning system to a blended system, and this also affected the application of PBL+. Because of this contingency, the PBL+ system was applied in partial virtual teaching-learning system. As a consequence, the performance of the methodology indicated that engineering studies do not adapt well to distance learning.

Keywords:

PBL+, Problem Based Learning, rubrics, service-learning, flipped classroom.