Encouraging faculty towards the curriculum transformation of engineering programs

This work shows an experience stressed on the motivation of Faculty to design student-centred approaches for Engineering Education. This article describes a teacher-training program to encourage the change, by using active learning experiences that, in an exemplarity way, promote a shift in attitude among teachers strengthening two skills: collaborative work and communication, essential skills for PBL. The program considers four moment, namely: i) Interpretation, ii) Disruption, iii) Communication, and iv) Transformation. These moments take as scenario restyling traditional classrooms, which are renovated as Active Learning Classrooms (ALC). The first moment ‘Interpretation’ uses Design Thinking tools for rethinking the teacher practice and analysing roles of participants on learning-teaching experiences; there, the main objective is to empathize. In the second moment, ‘Disruption,’ participants develop activities related to novel topics for their performance field; in this stage, workshops offer a disruptive environment fostering divergent thinking. The third moment, ‘Communication,’ uses playful activities that allow teachers to comprehend the importance of this skill for collective work. Finally, the moment called 'Transformation,' introduces the PBL by using workshops and Hands-On activities. In these activities, Faculty designs a PBL intervention for a semester or proposes a new educational framework for an engineering program. About 80 teachers from different programs have participated in the program training with successful results; many student-centred experiences are emerging, where the new ALC play a role of a catalyst for the teaching transformation.