Relevant features in steel structures teaching in building construction by project-based learning

Abstract

New approaches to teaching are moving towards a learning ever more active, practical and closer to professional sector, and have converged in a competence based education proposed by the European higher education area. Moreover, advances in computer calculations and its applications for structural analysis have brought a revolution in the professional area of structural engineering. Considering these circumstances, we have designed and implemented an educational program for teaching steel structures based on a Project based learning (PBL) method. In this paper we summarize the main features of the educational program, its implementation, results and evaluation; we analyze the performance of PBL in our context and compare some aspects of traditional teaching and our PBL; and finally we identify the most important characteristics required by teaching steel structures through the project based learning method.