Problem-Based Megaprojects: Complex Problem-Solving Competences and Interdisciplinarity in Higher Education
Wednesday, May 6 at 8 AM EDT
Webinar with Anette Kolmos
and Lykke Brogaard Bertel
With the growing need for solutions to address increasingly complex and diverse societal problems follows a need for more advanced skills and competences for the future. Competences, not only within one field or discipline but collaborative and transversal competences across programmes and paradigms as well. Educational institutions employ different strategies to support students in developing complex problem-solving skills in online and blended learning environments and one such strategy is the implementation of large scale and interdisciplinary student projects, or educational Megaprojects. These projects address highly complex problems and grand societal challenges while giving the students the possibility to integrate interdisciplinary and digitally supported collaborative learning into semester projects.
Aalborg University (AAU) has since its beginning in the 1970’s applied an institution-wide Project-oriented Problem-Based Learning (PBL) model, with groups of students working on projects each spanning a full semester. This approach has been shown to improve students’ collaborative skills and project-oriented competences, particularly within their own discipline. Since early 2000, initiatives have been developed to advance the level of interdisciplinarity in student projects particularly within engineering programs. In recent years this approach have been further expanded with the aim of including a wider variety of programs to collectively address the Sustainable Development Goals.
In the fall of 2019, AAU launched AAU Megaprojects providing students across all faculties the opportunity to work together on complex problems and grand societal challenges. Each megaproject spans a duration of 2-3 years and the structure of a megaproject is scalable in nature with several focus areas and related challenges, with interdisciplinary clusters of groups working on each challenge.
This webinar will present the PBL megaproject approach as a way to bring in more variation in project-based group work and discuss how variation (e.g. in types of problems, projects and degree of interdisciplinarity) in the learning experience has the potential to facilitate reflection on complex problem solving competences and create personal learning tracks in higher education.
Presentors // Anette Kolmos
Anette Kolmos is Professor in Engineering Education and PBL, Director for the UNESCO category 2 Centre: Aalborg Centre for Problem Based Learning in Engineering Science and Sustainability. She was Chair holder for UNESCO in Problem Based Learning in Engineering Education, Aalborg University, Denmark, 2007-2014. Guest professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology 2012-2017 and Guest Professor at UTM University Technology Malaysia 2011-2013. President of SEFI 2009–2011 (European Society for Engineering Education). Founding Chair of the SEFI-working group on Engineering Education Research. Was awarded the IFEES Global Award for Excellence in Engineering Education, 2013 and the SEFI fellowship in 2015.
During the last 20 years, Dr. Kolmos has researched the following areas, primarily within Engineering Education: gender and technology, project based and problem- based curriculum (PBL), change from traditional to project organized and problem- based curriculum, development of transferable skills in PBL and project work, and methods for staff development. She is Associate Editor for the European Journal of Engineering Education and was Associated Editor for Journal of Engineering Education (ASEE). Involved in supervision of 21 PhD projects and published around 280 publications. Member of several organizations and committees within EER, national government bodies, and committees in the EU.
Presentor // Lykke Brogaard Bertel
Lykke Brogaard Bertel is a postdoc in PBL and digital transformation at the UNESCO center for Problem-based Learning in Engineering, Science and Sustainability at Aalborg University. She received her industrial PhD in robot-supported collaborative learning in 2016 in collaboration with Danish Technological Institute. She has a background in digital technologies and persuasive design, and has worked as a specialist in technology-mediated motivation and PBL since 2011. She is affiliated with the institution-wide research project PBL Future at AAU, a member of the cross faculty PBL Academy and the project manager of the large digitalization project PBL Digital @ TECH at the Technical Faculty of IT and Design. Her research interests are in the fields of digitalization and lifelong-learning as well as emerging technologies and social responsible AI in higher education.