The project aims to stimulate innovation in teaching in higher education through problem-based learning in the Caribbean, to make higher education institutes and students better prepared to deal with contemporary urban problems and challenges.
Problem-based learning is a proven innovative approach for introducing real-world problems in the education program with huge possibilities to transform the quality of learning and teaching. It is a kind of active, integrated and constructive learning method that works from a student centered approach and emphasizes on learning to learn and learning by doing, and breaks with traditional teaching methods, which are still the dominant educational methods used in the Caribbean higher education institutes.
Departing from existing niches of problem-based learning methods in the curricula of ten Caribbean higher education partner institutes, interdisciplinary CITYLAB modules will be developed. Teachers from different faculties will be involved and trained to implement PBL methods enabling students to develop key interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary competences and skills.
Moreover the project seeks to increase the societal relevance of Higher Education Institutions in the Caribbean region through creating a more structural link between universities and external societal actors such as public authorities.
The project is a collaboration between fifteen European and Caribbean Higher Education Institutes.
More info on the project website
Project coordinator: Tom Coppens
Project managers: Stijn Rybels, Nina De Jonghe
Partner(s): Aalborg Universitet (Denmark), Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain), Politecnico di Torino (Italy), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), the University of the West Indies (Trinidad and Tobago), University of Trinidad and Tobago (Trinidad and Tobago), University of Guyana (Guyana), Government Technical Institute - Ministry of Education (Guyana), Institute for Graduate Studies and Research (Suriname), Polytechnic College Suriname (Suriname), Iberoamericana (Dominican Republic), Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (Dominican Republic), University of Technology (Jamaica), Caribbean Maritime Institute (Jamaica)
Period: 2017-2021
Funded by the Erasmus+ Key Action 2 programme of the European Union
Citylab CAR project partners during the project team meeting at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, August 2019