Virtualizing Project-Based Learning: An Abrupt Adaptation of Active Learning in the First Days of the COVID-19 Pandemic, with Promising Outcomes

Marco Antonio Carvalho Pereira, Luísa Miranda Nunes da Costa Ignácio and Cristiano E. Rodrigues Reis
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Marco Antonio Carvalho Pereira: Engineering School of Lorena, University of São Paulo, Lorena 12602-810, SP, Brazil
Luísa Miranda Nunes da Costa Ignácio: Engineering School of Lorena, University of São Paulo, Lorena 12602-810, SP, Brazil
Cristiano E. Rodrigues Reis: EARTH University, Las Mercedes, Guacimo P.O. Box 4442-1000, Limon, Costa Rica

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Project-based learning (PBL) is renowned as an active learning practice that promotes the application of the accumulation of knowledge through real-world and often open-ended problems. This work assesses a case evaluation of an introductory PBL course in a typical industrial engineering curriculum in Brazil. This course is taken during the first semester, in which students must develop solutions for a single given problem through weekly meetings. The case presented herein highlights the forced abrupt virtualization of the learning process, which imposed an unprecedented scenario on the students and instructors, especially with regard to this course, which is based primarily on presented discussions and activities. The first weeks of class following the abrupt virtualization of activities encountered misinformation and a lack of clarity about the adaptation of the activities. Fortunately, through rapid iterations, the adjustment process resulted in time invested by the students and classes, with an active discussion, using the tools made available by the university. This work aims to present the forced abrupt changes applied to this first-semester course, highlighting the challenges faced, and the positive outcomes obtained and observed by both the students and the instructor, and to make a comparison to the evolution of the course over the past years.

Keywords: COVID-19; project-based learning (PBL); engineering education; virtualization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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