During the last 40 years, problem- and project-based learning (PBL) has been widely adopted in engineering education because of its expected effectiveness in developing students’ professional knowledge and transferable skills. With a growing number of PBL researches and practices in engineering education, systematic or meta-analysis reviews were conducted regarding the definitions, history and development of PBL, and benefits for student learning outcomes. However, challenges in PBL implementation was little addressed in the current review works, and even less attention has been paid on how these challenges in implementation are related to the diverse PBL practices. This paper reviewed 108 research articles to explore the levels at which the currently reported PBL practice is being implemented, and what challenges in PBL practices are being addressed. This research illustrates the variety of PBL implementation at the course level, cross-course level, curriculum level, and project level. Across these four levels, similar challenges are reported at the individual level for teachers and students, as well as at the institutional level and the culture level. Recommendations on future research directions for engineering educational researchers and suggestions for engineering faculty and staff are proposed to optimise PBL curriculum design and inform future PBL implementation.

In a world where systems are increasingly larger, where their boundaries are often difficult to identify, and where societal rather than technical issues play increasingly bigger roles, problems cannot be solved by applying a technical solution alone. It thus becomes important for engineers to be skilled not only in terms of their particular technical field but also their ability to identify non-technical aspects of problems, the interaction between these aspects and possible solutions. Introducing and integrating these aspects into engineering education is certainly not an easy task and requires innovative approaches. In this article, focus is placed on the so-called Aalborg Model, a problem-oriented and project-based learning paradigm utilised at Aalborg University (Denmark), and the mutual benefits that this particular learning strategy provides for students, faculty and communities. The article discusses the concept of sustainable development; accounts for the general capabilities of engineering education graduates, and discusses the integration of non-technical issues into various environmental engineering curricula. On the basis of this discussion, it underlines the importance of applying a problem-oriented rather than a subject-oriented approach in order to create a balance between problem occurrence (or identification) and innovative problem solving. We conclude that, in order for engineers to be able to handle sustainability-related problems, their education needs to allow for interplay, mix and diversity; aspects that a problem-oriented and project-based learning approach will involve.

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has been drawing increased attention from language teachers and researchers in the past decade. This paper focuses on the effects of TBLT on beginner learners of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) in Denmark. Participatory observation and semi-structured interviews were carried out with 18 participants from two beginning-level Chinese classes. Qualitative analysis of the data indicates that TBLT benefits learners in terms of increasing participation, creating more opportunities for speaking, easing learners’ anxiety, and enhancing enjoyment. However, TBLT encountered challenges such as lack of Chinese pronunciation practice, difficulty in balancing learners’ different preferences for learning strategies, and a lack of sufficient instructional time support. Possibilities for improving TBLT and proposals are discussed. This study provides further evidence that TBLT is not a one-size-fits-all method, but rather interacts with various contextual factors in its application, and suggests that the features of the Chinese language need to be taken into consideration as well.