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Ribu, Kirsten; Patel, Tulpesh

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Project-based learning (PjBL) is a well-known student-centred methodology for engineering design education that encourages student-active learning through enhanced participation in the learning process and the development of increasingly important soft skills. In this paper, we report on our experience of transforming an interdisciplinary second-year bachelor level course in Human-computer interaction (HCI) into one where the educational concepts, principles skills and knowledge were bootstrapped onto the design process. We describe a PjBL approach to design-, prototyping- and testing phases in a student project involving Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology, and how formative and peer feedback mechanisms and reflection were built into each stage of the project work. We review and evaluate the results with relation to the prescribed learning outcomes for this HCI course, report on the students’ feedback on their learning experience, and discuss some of the benefits and challenges with PjBL in the context of a curriculum and degree programme that still favours traditional lecture-based teaching.

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Project-based learning, self-directed learning, assignment development, human-computer interaction