**3. Implementing PBL in Engineering Education 5.0 programmes**

#### **3.1 Synergic integration of PBL within innovative engineering studies**

The structures and contents of Engineering programmes in the 5.0 paradigm will necessarily suffer important transformations. A proposal for a universal engineering programme structure, considering contemporary and future engineering roles, has been recently detailed [9]. To summarizing, a whole 6-year programme, integrating a 4-year bachelor's degree plus a 2-year master's degree, can very adequately provide students with fundamental scientific-technological knowledge, specialized professional and transversal skills, necessary ethical values, and even give them important opportunities for personalization and professional planning. This can be achieved through modularity, through collaboration with other programmes, universities and institutions, through the promotion of international mobility and external internships and through a more flexible understanding of all the possible types of experiences that contribute to a holistic training of engineers, as already explained [9].

Let us consider the CDIO initiative, probably the most transformative and international action in the engineering education of the twenty-first century, and the current version of the CDIO standards (version 3.0) [21]. CDIO (from conceive-design-implement-operate) relies on the wise application of PBL principles for making engineering education more effective, through the engineering of different products, processes, and systems. Usually, CDIO-inspired engineering programmes benefit from at least one intensive hands-on or PBL course per training year, and the curricula are methodically designed *with an explicit plan to integrate personal and interpersonal skills, and product, process, system, and service building skills*.

In the author's belief, engineering studies in the 5.0 paradigm should rely on project-based methods even more than in current CDIO-inspired programmes. The use of PBL, not only as a methodology for fostering the ABET professional skills [22, 23], but also for delivering purposeful and continuously updated content, linked to the scientific-technological fundamentals of Industry 4.0 and 5.0, may prove strategic.

Accordingly, this section proposes a general plan for the synergic integration of PBL within engineering studies. The plan incorporates at least one intensive handson or PBL course or highly formative student-centered experience per semester, as schematically shown in **Table 1** and further described in **Table 2**.

Different types of project-based activities are considered, all of them relevant and mutually supportive, from the more straightforward and descriptive, to the more complex and integrative. These are classified with some parallelism to Bloom's taxonomy, starting with descriptive and analytical PBL experiences, following with synthetic PBL experiences, and ending up with complete CDIO approaches and final theses. There is also space for local and international competitions, as a way for promoting personalization, for more easily adapting the engineering programmes to relevant engineering trends and for promoting peer learning approaches, in a way bringing *Montessorian* style to higher education. The possibility of linking PBL experiences with R&D tasks, both within universities' departments and laboratories and within research centers and enterprises, reinforces the necessary focus on lifelong learning and the rewarding connection of engineering programmes with the industrial environment. The inclusion of at least one service-learning experience, in the general structure, supports students' orientation to real societal challenges and may stress the fundamental ethical aspects and implications of science and technology. Again, it is necessary to highlight that the varied plethora of PBL initiatives can be an excellent way of helping students follow their paths.

The above-proposed mapping of PBL initiatives along an integral 6-year Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Engineering for Society 5.0 can be adapted to any engineering programme of the 5.0 paradigm. The initial PBL experiences (years 1st–2nd) have a clear focus on knowledge acquisition and concentrate on the promotion of analytical skills, while those from the 3rd to 6th years are directed towards knowledge application and foster more technical and professional skills.

Countless examples can be provided for each type of PBL experience and **Table 2** just aims at providing a brief description, of the different types of modern PBL experiences, and some implementation examples in the context of Engineering Education 5.0. Many of the cited examples apply the techniques


#### **Table 1.**

*Proposal for mapping different types of PBL initiatives along with an integral 6-year Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Engineering for Society 5.0.*

*Engineering Education 5.0: Strategies for a Successful Transformative Project-Based Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102844*


#### **Table 2.**

*Description and implementation examples of modern PBL experiences in the Engineering Education 5.0 paradigm.*

from Industry 4.0 and 5.0, like artificial intelligence, big data, internet of things, cyberphysical interfaces, multi-physical/chemical simulations, digital twins, additive manufacturing, collaborative robots, autonomous systems …, to solving problems in different industries and engineering fields. In other cases, the PBL


**Table 3.**

*Different types of PBL experiences and their connections with students' outcomes, employing the ABET professional skills as reference.*

*Engineering Education 5.0: Strategies for a Successful Transformative Project-Based Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102844*

initiatives are focused on designing or further developing such technologies. The redesign or reengineering of existing products, processes or systems, with sustainability principles in mind, can be also a source for highly rewarding PBL experiences, in connection with all Sustainable Development Goals.

Pioneering experiences in the PBL arena will, of course, continue enlightening the new generations of engineers. Among them, it is important to mention: the "Formula SAE/Student" automotive challenges (dating back to 1981), the "IARC" competition on aerial robotics (since 1991), the "CAN-SAT" satellite construction challenges (since 1998), the "FIRST Lego League" robotics competitions (since 1998), the "Solar Decathlon" competitions focused on efficient buildings (since 2002), the James Dyson Design Competitions (since 2007) and the "UBORA" medical device design schools (since 2017), to cite some examples in varied engineering fields. Most of them have taken benefit from the methods and techniques from Industry 4.0 and 5.0, well before the coining of such terms, and have also helped to research and develop several working methods and technologies that are central to current industrial revolutions.

#### **3.2 Systematic promotion of students' outcomes through modern PBL**

The previous section has mapped the different types of PBL experiences along with an integral 6-year Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Engineering for Society 5.0, as an example of how any engineering programme may be transformed through truly transformative student-centered activities. Now, it is also necessary to integrate these experiences in a synergic or mutually supportive way, to systematically promote students' outcomes.

Employing the ABET professional skills as a reference, **Table 3** presents an example of how different types of PBL experiences connect with students' outcomes, considering that each outcome should be specifically covered by at least one PBL experience of the engineering programme (see also **Table 2**). The more integrative PBL experiences (final theses, R&D PBL and CDIO experiences), for instance, may well synergize for fostering students' abilities to apply knowledge from maths, science and engineering, to identify, formulate and solve engineering problems, to design systems and components to meet specifications and to understand the impacts of engineering solutions. Other more focused PBL experiences (in-company PBL, competitions, analytical/synthetic) may promote ABET's skills d, f, g, i, j, k.

### **4. From Industry 4.0 to Society 5.0 through modern PBL**

#### **4.1 Advancing technologies from Industry 4.0 towards Society 5.0**

Once explained how different types of PBL experiences may be mapped along a universal 6-year engineering programme for Society 5.0 and how the different kinds of experiences support each other for the promotion of students outcomes, this section concentrates on how PBL may help to further develop the technologies from Industry 4.0 towards Society 5.0, considering also the roles of modern engineering professional practice and providing an application example of how PBL may vertebrate a specific engineering programme for Society 5.0. **Table 4** presents several examples of PBL teaching-learning experiences for deploying the technologies from Industry 4.0 and hence constructing Society 5.0. Depending on the outcomes and industrial area of the specific engineering programme and on students' wishes a myriad of combinations is possible.


#### **Table 4.**

*Examples of PBL teaching-learning experiences for deploying the technologies from Industry 4.0 and hence constructing Society 5.0.*

*Engineering Education 5.0: Strategies for a Successful Transformative Project-Based Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102844*

### **4.2 PBL oriented to the professional engineering roles in Society 5.0**

Besides, the increasing connection between engineering disciplines may contribute to a progressive dissolution of borders between the classical specializations of the programmes of studies. Probably, structuring Engineering Education 5.0 programmes according to the modern professional roles of engineers, which are more stable than the continuously evolving and nascent engineering majors, may be an adequate solution for constructing universal engineering programmes [9]. With this perspective, **Table 5** describes and exemplifies PBL oriented to the different professional engineering roles in Society 5.0.

#### **4.3 Example: PBL in a Biomedical Engineering 5.0 programme**

Considering all previous sections, **Table 6** presents the concrete mapping of modern PBL experiences throughout an integral 6-year Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering for Society 5.0. In the scheme, all types of PBL experiences synergize for providing students with basic and applied knowledge, for letting them acquire technical and professional skills, liked to most areas of Industry 4.0 and several challenges of healthcare within Society 5.0.

#### **4.4 Discussion and future implementation pathways**

The presented perspective is based on an analysis of the recent evolution of PBL-experiences and engineering education, in general, and follows the findings and continuation proposals of transformative educational experiences described in the selected references. However, it also derives from the author's personal and highly rewarding experiences in the design and implementation of different kinds of PBL experiences in six different degrees of studies at UPM, carried out at bachelor's, master's and doctoral levels, as well as in international onsite and online hackathons, bootcamps and engineering design schools.

Some of these successful stories, in connection with different types of PBL experiences already including some features of Engineering Education 5.0, have been previously reported [15, 19, 20, 24]. Nevertheless, the creation of a whole 6-year engineering programme, completely structured around PBL experiences focusing on the technologies from Industry 5.0, as schematically presented in **Tables 1** and **6**, is still an educational dream. The author intends to progress towards the implementation of this kind of educational model, which connects with the pioneering example and aims of the International CDIO Initiative, perhaps taken to the extreme, until its last consequences and interwoven with continuously evolving technologies, which requires more dynamic programmes.

Such real-life implementation can follow differently and mutually supporting strategies. A first and straightforward strategy could rely on the gathering of successful PBL experiences, across programmes of a university, and on letting students select (initially as one or two electives per year), those more in line with their interests. A second strategy, now that inter-university campuses are being created across Europe (Erasmus+ European Universities programme), would be to organize biannual international PBL events within these new communities, offering different types of PBL experiences related to Industry 5.0 and with a common credit transfer system. This would also help to vertebrate the new European universities. A third option would be to update the contents and methods of already existing engineering programmes and transform them through modern PBL. To this end, the bottom-up changes introduced by professors, already carrying out transformative PBL in their courses, can act as seminal examples. Finally, a fourth alternative is


#### **Table 5.**

*Description of PBL experiences oriented to the different professional engineering roles in Society 5.0.*

foreseen: evolving already existing PBL courses towards the concept and context of Engineering Education 5.0 (dynamically updating and incorporating new technologies, making knowledge-based and outcomes-based education compatible, focusing on the SDGs and sustainability, taking account for the human and ethical aspects of engineering, among others).


*Engineering Education 5.0: Strategies for a Successful Transformative Project-Based Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102844*

**Table 6.**

*Implementation example: concrete mapping of modern PBL experiences throughout an integral 6-year Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Biomedical Engineering for Society 5.0.*

Top-down approaches and decisions might also support these directions and offer change in the mid-term future. One could foresee international accreditation agencies assuming these principles along the current decade, or a rectorate deciding to update the educational model of a whole university, which could be built around PBL and Industry 5.0. Despite these top-down possibilities, in the author's view, the more relevant educational changes at universities tend to follow bottom-up schemes, starting with an inspiring conversation in the classroom between students

and professors or with a shared dream among colleagues from a department or faculty, which act as the crystallization seeds of change.

Accordingly, to favour the proposed transition towards PBL 5.0, the following scheme of **Figure 3** provides a guided set of steps and driving questions, through which PBL for Industry 5.0 experiences can be designed, managed and evaluated,

#### **Figure 3.**

*Guided steps and driving issues for creating PBL 5.0 experiences.*

#### **Figure 4.**

*(a) Upper images: relaxed discussions and peer learning in international PBL experiences. (b) Lower images: PBL prototyping results of biodevices for good health and well-being (SDG3). Innovative Braille display, testing a 3D printed water filter, and face-protecting splints for safe sport practice. Courtesy of UBORA project.*

*Engineering Education 5.0: Strategies for a Successful Transformative Project-Based Learning DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.102844*

with a focus on their steady integration in already existing engineering programmes, for acting as the previously cited seeds of change. Additional advice may be found in recent publications [25, 26].

Finally, **Figure 4** presents some examples of typical behaviours (students and professors learning together, more Socratic discussions than master classes), environments (international teams, tinkering possibilities, onsite and online interactions), and results (real working prototypes solving relevant needs) expectable in PBL 5.0 experiences mentored by the author.
