Engineering teachers are not prepared to be teachers. In fact, most of them never had a formal course in education before teaching (Wankat, 2015). Besides that, there is a wide range of challenges in teaching practice, such as students’ engagement, the complexity of the demands of professional practice, didactic transposition, technological advances, amongst others. Thus, it is not surprising that teachers’ professional development is of growing interest in Higher Education Institutions, by providing initiatives to promote excellence in teaching. According to Kennedy (2014), it is possible to identify different approaches to enhance teachers’ professional development, namely, training, coaching and mentoring, learning communities, action research, and transformative approaches.

This work is part of an ongoing ERASMUS + project entitled ‘Reinforcing Non-University Sector at the Tertiary Level in Engineering and Technology to Support Thailand Sustainable Smart Industry’. This project intends to enhance the capacity and ability of Thailand teachers for the effective delivery of engineering and technology knowledge and skills related to Industry 4.0, to support Thailand’s sustainable smart industry. This implies a training program designed for engineering teachers in Thailand and includes 10 modules organized in two parts: the first part includes five modules related to Industry 4.0 knowledge (e.g. Data Analytics, Digital Manufacturing); the second part includes other five modules related to Teaching Skills to Enhancement Learning Experience-Focused Course Design and Development (e.g. Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods, Problem and Project-Based Learning). The training program demands 15 training hours per module and focuses on the cascade model (Kennedy, 2014). First, a group of twelve engineering teachers from four Thai universities attends the training courses to be trainers. After the training, a total of 30 hours of coaching/mentoring is provided to support the twelve participants in their teaching practice. At the end of this process, it is expected that they deliver these modules to other engineering teachers from all over Thailand.  

Considering this context, this work will describe the training experience of “train the trainers” in the “Problem and Project-Based Learning” module, considering its design, development, and final evaluation. The preliminary results will be also presented and discussed. 

The context of this study focuses on the Problem and Project-Based Learning module that was designed in the first year of the project, in which a syllabus was developed by three Engineering Education experts from Portugal. The syllabus describes the expected competences, learning outcomes, assessment, contents, learning activities, and materials. The module development 15 hours of training were delivered face to face, in September 2023. During the training, the participants were able to foster their competences by developing an initial PBL proposal to apply in their own teaching contexts. After that, the participants had the opportunity to have 24 hours of coaching/mentoring online (October 2022 to January 2023), during which they shared the final version of the PBL proposal. Over time the sessions focus more on their PBL implementation process in the classroom. The coaching/mentoring sessions are intended to support them in terms of the constraints and difficulties identified in practice. Plus, these sessions also provided a space and a time in which they were encouraged to reflect critically on the use of PBL in their teaching context. At this point, the participants will start to prepare themselves as trainers to deliver this module to other Thai universities. A total of 6 hours of coaching/mentoring are also expected to be conducted with a special focus on preparing the trainers to deliver training in Thai HE institutions. The final output of the training, plus the coaching/mentoring process, is an individual portfolio. Thus, this study intends to understand the impact of the training experience of “train the trainers” in the Problem and Project-Based Learning module, considering the perspectives of the twelve engineering teachers. Based on a qualitative methodological approach, data collected in this study includes two phases. In the first phase, document analysis was carried out, taking into account the diaries and observations from the training experts at different moments of the process, as well as the content of the teachers’ portfolios developed during the training and coaching/mentoring. In the second phase, a questionnaire is going to be applied in the middle of February 2023 regarding the training experience. This questionnaire will be designed based on the inputs of the previous phase.

The main results of this study are focused on phase two of data collection. It is expected to have inputs from the participants about the impact of the training experience in terms of 1) experience in implementing PBL; 2) changes in teaching practice and mindset; 3) challenges in being a PBL trainer. The results will be discussed considering the research implications for teacher professional development in Higher Education. Acknowledgments: This work was developed in the context of project 619325-EPP-1-2020-1-TH-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP, “Reinforcing Non-University Sector at the Tertiary Level in Engineering and Technology to Support Thailand Sustainable Smart Industry” which has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Wankat, P. C., & Oreovicz, F. S. (2015). Teaching Engineering, Second Edition. Purdue University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv15wxqn9 Kennedy, A. (2014). Models of Continuing Professional Development: a framework for analysis. Professional Development in Education, 40(3), 336-351. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2014.929293