A Problem Based Learning Process Integrated in IT Engineering Education

(PBL) pilot with ca. 90 students was started in the information technology engineering education at Turku University of Applied Sciences. The main goals of the pilot were to decrease discontinuation of the studies and delayed graduations, as well as to improve the students ’ abilities to work in a team and to learn and think by themselves already from the early phase of their studies. During three academic years the structure of the pilot has been developed on the grounds of the students ’ feedback and the results obtained. In this paper, the resulting PBL-model, now integrated into the curriculum, as well as the reasons and experiences gathered from the students and the teachers are presented. Moreover, a virtual learning environment was developed as a part of the PBL-project. This environment containing dedicated areas for each PBL-group to discuss, process assignments as well as to assess and evaluate the results is described. In addition, the achievements of the pilot’s main goals are discussed and certain guidelines for related trials from the engineering education’s perspective are proposed.