Teaching AI competencies in engineering using projects and open educational resources

Abstract

A major challenge in engineering education is to empower students to use their acquired technical skills to solve real-world problems. In particular, methods of Artificial Intelligence (AI) need to be studied as tools in their respective application contexts. This puts pressure on university lecturers concerning the didactical design and elaboration of a course, and requires them to move towards a practice-based learning approach. Moreover, working on real-world problems leads to uncertainties for the lecturer and their students. Before and during the course, it is not always clear which methods will be used to solve the problem, respectively which competencies the participants need to acquire. Therefore, we propose to combine two established approaches: a project-based learning approach and the use of digital, curated learning content provided by Open Education Resources (OERs). We hypothesise that a practical study project solving a real-world problem using a combination of OERs and project-based learning is beneficial to AI education. Furthermore, we show implementations of our concept in three different courses. The first results indicate that student-centred tasks lead to high intrinsic motivation. At the same time, lecturers have to deal with a modified and extended role: They are no longer the broadcaster of knowledge but rather a guide within the learning process. Using the combination of OERs and project-based learning, the courses are attractive and exciting for students and lecturers without becoming unmanageable.