Engineering Education 5.0: Strategies for a Successful Transformative Project-Based Learning

Abstract

Project-based learning has importantly helped to transform engineering education over the last decades, as it has been increasingly applied worldwide, as a fundamental methodology for shifting to student-centered engineering programmes. To enlighten the transition from Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0, and from Engineering Education 4.0 to Engineering Education 5.0, project-based learning (PBL) methodologies should also evolve. In terms of focus and topics selected for the PBL experiences, it is necessary to put forward the relevance of global challenges and to nurture a compromise for sustainability and ethical behaviour, while bringing students as close as possible to real multifaceted engineering problems. As regards connections with other educational methodologies, PBL and service learning (SL) are bound to hybridization and may benefit from innovative approaches, like the use of flipped classrooms, the promotion of gamification or the support of online resources and e-/b-/m-learning tools and methods. Complete PBL experiences will also synergize with and contribute to open-source engineering movements, like the “makers” movement, and will benefit from open software and hardware tools for increased educational equity. This chapter analyses and discusses trends in PBL methodologies, in connection with these new industrial and educational paradigms.