2.2 Choose and formulate project tasks

2.21.1 Choose and formulate project tasks As described by Kolmos et al12, there are three different types of projects in educational settings. In the first type, the case/task based project, the discipline and the problems as well as the methods are decided in advance. The teachers/supervisors in a case/task based project plan and control the projects. The second type, the discipline based project, means that students have the opportunity to choose/define the problem while the discipline and the methods are decided in advance. The teacher/supervisor manages the learning process. The third type, the problem based project, differs from the other two in that the problem is the point of departure and the problem will guide the students to appropriate disciplines and methods. In problem based projects, the students have to take responsibility for their own learning and the teacher/supervisor has a less active role.

The courses exemplified in this guide are inspired from all of these different approaches, since some have more open tasks while others have pre-defined tasks for the students. In some cases the tasks come from external partners, even then they can be both open-ended as well as more well-defined. There is also a balance between having a focus on the product on the one hand, and/or focusing on the learning on the other hand. Prince and Felder13 conclude that ”A trade-off exists between instructors being fairly directive in choosing projects, which helps maintain a focus on course and curriculum objectives, and allowing students the autonomy to choose their own project formulations and strategies, which increases their motivation”.

An Example from Communication System Design illustrating well-defined project tasks from external partners: In this course, project tasks are formulated by external clients, e.g. Karolinska Institutet (KI), Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology (DIT) and Tanzania Commission of Science and Technology (Costech). The assignments cover challenges as “Community Health Portal – a community health portal is to be established with entries for health workers, patients, selected relatives of patients and the general public. The purpose is to provide e.g. health and drug information, guidelines, decision and drug management support” and “Extension of the Serengeti Broadband Network – the main technical challenge is power supply, the solution has to be as power-lean as possible and has to use solar power and innovative energy storage”.

In this course, the students get rather well-defined assignments including the aim to construct products/devices/computer simulations. This course is more in line with the case/task based approach, even though it contains elements of the problem based approach, e.g. students having to identify their own learning need.s 13, 14

An Example from the course Open Lab illustrating open-ended problems from external partners: ¶

The City of Stockholm, Stockholm County Council and Stockholm County Administrative Board provide students with open-ended challenges, and the stakeholders do not expect a product in the end, rather proposals for solutions to complex social issues. Examples of challenges to be investigated are “Traffic and congestion - One of the single most significant challenges is increasing access to the transport system while minimizing the climate impact of the traffic sector” and ”An ageing population - By 2015 more than 20 percent of the EU’s population will be above the age of 65. The number of people over 80 in particular is growing rapidly. Older people have special healthcare needs and the system needs to be adapted to be able to provide adequate care while being economically sustainable”.

In this course, the students have to specify the problem formulation and methods by themselves. Thus, this course has similarities with the problem based project approach. 12¶

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Bild 7: Open Lab 5111

Bildtext: Students working on solving the problem with traffic and congestion, OpenLab.

Suggestion: There is a variation in the courses described regarding whether they have ill-defined and open ended real-world problems or clearly defined assignments for the students to work on and whether the projects are formulated by teachers or by external partners or industry. Prior to deciding upon the challenge/project task, start with the intended learning outcomes of the course as described in the next paragraph and decide how to balance between focusing on the level of the result of the project work and the level of the learning. If you have external contacts that can provide you with challenging project tasks, use the intended learning outcomes as a backdrop when you decide upon the exact formulation of the tasks. If you, in your course, have an intended learning outcome similar to “Handle technical problems which are incompletely stated and subject to multiple constraints”, the challenge should be formulated in a manner that opens for the students to decide for themselves how to approach the problem.