The results of my Teaching & Learning Fellowship on CBL
Project introduction and background information
The University of Twente (UT) has embraced Challenge-Based Learning (CBL) to educate students in addressing complex societal challenges. Supported by 4TU.CEE funding, seven Teaching and Learning Fellows, including myself, experimented with CBL over two years. Now that the project has concluded, we can elaborate on the outcomes and impacts of our efforts. As one of these fellows, I will describe the outcomes and impact of my contribution.
Objective and expected outcomes
I started my fellowship with three objectives in mind:
- Measure the effectiveness of CBL at course level.
- Increase CBL adoption.
- Develop an implementation guideline for CBL.
Results and learnings
CBL Effectiveness
I experimented with CBL in my Master's course within the Civil Engineering Program (Faculty of Engineering Technology, UT), comparing it to the previous year's Project-Based Learning (PBL) approach. Analysis of student projects, grades, and survey results showed that while average grades remained the same, CBL led to a wider distribution of grades, with more students achieving both higher and lower grades. Additionally, students had mixed perceptions of CBL; some liked it, while others did not. There is no evidence that students preferred CBL over PBL, but they did prefer CBL over traditional lecture-based teaching. The experiment also revealed that standard institution-level evaluations need to be adapted for CBL courses. The current evaluation system implicitly assumes a leading role for the teacher and includes questions such as "the information provided by the teacher was useful" and "the lectures were relevant," which do not fit a CBL approach.
Increased Adoption of CBL
The Lessons Learned from the experiment with CBL in my Master's course, combined with the UT's Educational Strategy that promotes the use of CBL, convinced the management of the Civil Engineering department to focus more on CBL. Consequently, CBL was implemented in another Civil Engineering course, and a new mandatory course, "Civil Engineering Challenges," was developed.
CBL Tool – Challenge Up
In collaboration with the UT Teaching & Learning Fellows, the Centre for Education Learning & Teaching (CELT), and the UT’s Mendix software development team, I led the development of a free online CBL tool. This tool, called Challenge Up, assists teachers in gradually adjusting their courses towards CBL in a structured way. More information on Challenge Up can be found on the Innovation Map. The development of Challenge Up was sponsored by the 4TU.Centre for Engineering Education and is available at: http://challengeup.utwente.nl
Practical outcomes
In summary, my Teaching & Learning Fellowship has resulted in increased awareness of CBL at the UT, increased adoption of CBL, and the development of Challenge Up, a free online CBL tool (http://challengeup.utwente.nl).