The human factors module equips the engineering undergraduates with the knowledge, skills and attitude for the aviation industry. Problem-Based Learning is adopted as the anchor pedagogy in the on-line module. The aim is to bring in cognitive and collaborative authentic learning, for students to work in virtual teams on real-world aircraft maintenance challenges. As team dynamics take time to nurture and develop, with the added challenge of learning on-line, “mini-PBL” in-class sessions are scaffolded early in the module to build trust as the virtual teams work on smaller problems. Students are next given two consecutive PBL assignments, increasingly complex and challenging. Students feedback that they find real-world problems worthwhile, and learned to work well as a team. They valued the feedback and facilitation by the instructor. None of the students felt learning on-line was a barrier. Some students’ feedback that overall workload affected effort needed for the more challenging PBL assignments. The facilitator must be mindful not to be too eager towards guiding the teams to a solution, but rather to be patient and to allow awkward pauses for students to reflect. An important facilitation skill is to ask empowering questions to deepen learning, leading to self-discovery “aha moments”, and to self-determine their next steps forward. It cannot be over emphasized that design of PBL is important for the students to progressively achieve the learning outcomes. Overall, students find PBL challenging but worthwhile, allowing them to learn as an individual and as a team to work on real-world problems.

Problem-based learning: Bringing in cognitive and collaborative authentic learning into the online classroom

[Conference proceedings](https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/transforming-pbl-through-hybrid-learning-models-timely-challenges)