PROJECT-BASED LEARNING: A TEACHING APPROACH WHERE LEARNING COMES ALIVE

“Doing projects” is a long-standing tradition in American education. According to Buck Institute for Education (BIE) (www.pblworks.org) the roots of PBL lie in this tradition. But the emergence of a method of teaching and learning called Project Based Learning (PBL) is the result of two important developments over the last 25 years. First, there has been a revolution in learning theory. Research in neuroscience and psychology has extended cognitive and behavioral models of learning—which support traditional direct instruction—to show that knowledge, thinking, doing, and the contexts for learning are inextricably tied. We now know that learning is partly a social activity; it takes place within the context of culture, community, and past experiences.

Project-Based Learning Application in Higher Education

Learning methodologies that are active and centred on the student are concepts that accentuate the learning process instead of the teaching process. In this way, the following chapter aims to present the application of project-based learning in higher education and the different impact it might have on the students, as well as the experience and perspective from the students' point of view on this kind of teaching approach. To be able to collect data, the authors used initially a qualitative approach to comprehend and understand the research subjects' perspectives and points of view, followed by the focus group method as a method for collecting qualitative data. Throughout the students' experience, the development of transversal competences is mentioned several times as a great aspect related to this kind of methodology. However, the need for effective management of conflicts between members and the mandatory integration of some subjects' contents are also mentioned as some less-positive aspects.

Developing Student Self-Assessment Competences in the Online Learning Environment Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Didactic self-assessment represents students' ability to make value judgments on their own academic performances obtained as a result of the instructive-educational process. Developing self-assessment competences in the virtual environment represents a major challenge, given that teachers' regulatory intervention to ensure the objectivity of the process is very limited. The aim of the present study conducted on a sample of 139 students from the University of Oradea, Romania was to identify how the implementation of an interactive teaching approach may contribute to the formation of student self-assessment competences as objectively as possible. The results obtained showed that most students tend to underestimate themselves in exams due to a lack of confidence in their own abilities due to insufficient preparation for the subjects studied. However, the use of specific strategies for the development of self-assessment competences can lead to their improvement but only if they are implemented constantly and to as many study subjects as possible.

Impact of a science and technology strategy on the learning of physics

The use of smartphones and some applications for educational purposes are valuable tools in the laboratory since they are motivating for students and the teacher can take advantage of this advantage for the teaching of physics. The experience is based on the anthropological theory of didactics and the teaching approach in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is proposed to investigate a trigger question in physics. To respond, an application is used that uses the smartphone’s sensors to record the simulation data. The experience is described, and results of its implementation are presented. Methodologically, a qualitative descriptive approach was used in a group of tenth grade students taking the physics course. Finally, it is concluded that the students felt motivated since they felt they participated in the construction of their own learning, supported using technologies that facilitate the integration of knowledge in physics.

Video-based flipped learning in higher education: Effects on students’ learning motivation, attitudes, and engagement

In the recent years, flipped learning has become popular and been widely utilized as teaching approach to activate students’ learning engagement, which is frequently used to reverse the conventional teaching. However, much more efforts are necessary to enrich the literature about its practices across different teaching and learning contexts. This study is at the cutting edge of examining the practice of flipped learning in higher education contexts; as well as exploring its effects on students’ learning motivation, attitudes, and engagement. Data were collected using a questionnaire from 35 undergraduate students enrolled in “Introduction of Educational Technology” course at a college of education, and the data were tested using 24-version IBM-SPSS linear regression. The results demonstrated that flipped learning strategy is a positive predictor for students’ learning motivation (p-value 0.001 0.05), attitudes (p-value 0.007 0.05), and engagement (p-value 0.003 0.05). The results contribute to offering valuable insights for college stakeholders to enhance the efficacy of teaching and learning process, particularly for higher education curriculum designers to adapt to the current teaching approach. Instructional implication and research suggestions are provided based on the results of the study.