This paper presents a personal introduction to Knud Illeris’ Problemorientering og deltagerstyring – oplæg til en alternativ didaktik [Problem-orientation and participant-direction – a draft for an alternative didactic], published first in 1974. Illeris is one of the founding fathers of PBL in Denmark, and 50 years after its first publication it seems fitting to re-read the book, and I hope others will do the same. Introduced to PBL as something sprawling from the counterculture, youth rebellion, and progressive pedagogies, I found Illeris’ book to be both inspiring and a bit underwhelming, and in many cases foreshadowing neoliberal conceptions of outcome-based education.

Changing modes of production and emerging technologies and economies require capable employees equipped with a set of diverse competences. These competences are no longer limited to specific disciplines but include broader emphasis on generic competences applicable across various contexts involving a variety of professions. Consequently, collaboration and teamwork are also two central generic competences in engineering practice and pivotal elements in engineering education. However, collaboration and teamwork competences are often only superficially addressed and moreover, not based on students' experience. This study address engineering students' experience of the constituent parts of teamwork competences in a systematic integrated problem-based learning (PBL) environment and how these can contribute to curriculum development. Conducting a thematic analysis of students' written competence profiles (n = 130) results in the construction of five themes concerning students' teamwork competences: finding complementary competences, establishing teamwork culture, preventing and managing conflicts, awareness of self and others and shared situational awareness. Each theme is illustrated by several components emphasised by students and exemplified by excerpts useful for curriculum development or learning activities supporting development of specific competences. The thematic analysis furthermore exemplifies how generic competences are perceived as enablers of disciplinary problem-solving in teams, and how systematically integrated PBL supports the development of a wide variety of teamwork competences. The article concludes that students are acutely aware of team members and their position in a team while maintaining flexibility enabling potential responses to anticipated or unknown challenges found in the internal or external environment of the team.

The development of generic skills and competences has become a central component of contemporary engineering education due to increased societal and occupational complexity. Problem- and project-based learning (PBL) has been highlighted as one of the pedagogical approaches fostering generic skills and competences that are transferable between various contexts. However, the arguments linking PBL and generic competences have mostly been theoretically grounded or based on singular cases of teaching experience. The purpose of this literature review is therefore to present a comprehensive overview of the different types of generic competences documented in a PBL environment. The review includes 28 peer-reviewed articles that have documented engineering students' perceptions of generic skill and competence development. The results reveal either an emphasis in the studies on teamwork, typically combined with a couple of other types of generic competences, or, in a few cases, a narrow focus on problem-solving. The synthesis of generic competences perceived by engineering students in PBL environments furthermore unfolds a landscape of generic competences, which provides a frame of reference to discuss strategies to foster the broad set of generic competences needed for future engineers to deal with the complex societal challenges of our time.

This paper proposes a systematic approach to the analysis of the prevalence of generic competences in formal problem-based learning (PBL) curricula at higher education institutions and universities in which generic competences are an integral and integrated part of the curriculum, with a particular focus on how the generic competences are specified explicitly in the curriculum. A case study on the implementation of PBL competences at Aalborg University (AAU) shows, that the dialectic relationship between knowledge and practice is limited after the first semester, with the risk that both knowledge, skills, and competences related to PBL become tacit and thus might be less easily expressed and related to the development of a professional identity. Based on this we argue that revision of the formal curricula must support students with theoretical knowledge on PBL, project management, and group collaboration throughout the study to accommodate a greater variety in types of problems, projects, and complexity. This calls for further elaboration of ‘generic’ competence frameworks and points to challenges and potentials for near-future and next practice curriculum development particularly with attention to the concept of progression, thus providing a benchmark for future research assessing the integration of PBL competences in formal curricula.

Problem-based learning has a long history of transforming higher education institutions at course-, curriculum- and even systemic levels, and has shown to enhance student-centered learning and core pedagogical values such as facilitating collaboration, complex problem-solving skills and critical thinking. However, rapid digitalisation in higher education and emerging trends such as personalised life-long learning through micro-credentials and flexible curriculum models challenges existing, traditional onsite PBL practices and require new frameworks for envisioning future practice in higher education based on an understanding of its local context and the inclusion of multiple relevant stakeholders and practitioners, not only to co-create potential scenarios suitable for a particular educational institution but also in pointing to directions for initiating and maintaining this change process on a systemic level. In this paper, we propose normative scenario thinking as a method for educational development, and present the first steps and initial findings from a process of normative scenario development within a PBL university. The aim of this process has been to identify and explore key trends and core values that inform the development of future scenarios for the conceptualisation and implementation of PBL at the university, in a digital age. Through the analysis of a specific scenario related to project variation and reflection, we exemplify how a value-based and problem-oriented approach to exploring emerging PBL futures can facilitate systemic change in higher education.

This paper takes its point of departure in the educational reform of the Danish upper-secondary school, which emphasizes the use of technology in the educational sphere. The reform is based on the notion that technological development is a foundation for our society. The ambition is twofold; to compete on a global economic scene, Denmark is dependent on the youth's digital literacies, and in order to participate in the digital society the same competences are required. The teachers' technological and digital literacies are expected to inform the students' digital Bildung and digital literacies. Through a qualitative study, interviews were conducted with teachers from a Danish Higher Technical Examination Programme (HTX). By applying a critical approach informed by Freire's generative themes and Feenberg's instrumentalization theory, limit-situations, limit-acts and perceptions of technology are investigated. The study finds that technologies at a societal level are perceived primarily as beneficial tools permeating society with minor consequences derived from a formal bias. At an educational level, technologies act as both empowering tools and as problematic disturbances. Digital Bildung is promoted by practical and reflective use of technology, but is centred around certain software which promotes a 'locked' skillset. However, digital Bildung can also be enhanced by removing the technology and reflect on the consequences its absence. The metaphors used to describe technology suggest an understanding based in soft technological determinism.