A learning model proposal focused on challenge-based learning

Abstract

This paper proposes a model that comprises a learning exercise based on challenges, which tends to promote non-technical skills such as oral expression, communication, resource management, leadership and problem solving among engineering students. Since engineers have been recognized throughout the world for their ability to creatively solve problems, using the technical knowledge developed in their professional career, it has been considered that these skills make it easier for them to reach results that involve the solution of mathematical problems, or those related to science, through the use of technical skills, research or analysis and synthesis. In this sense, the academia seems to have placed the emphasis on hard and technical skills, while, non-technical ones, have been left in a secondary stage in the case of engineers, ignoring their role on their professional development. This project proposes a model that will bring together more than 180 engineering students and 4 university professors, by involving them in a real challenge that they might solve by means of their technical and non-technical skills. The model is being applied at a university and their first results show the need to modify the engineering training processes, to include the development of appropriate competences in engineers, in response to the demands of a globalized world.