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Teaching project management and industrial optimization to engineering students requires real-world experiences in which they can explicitly integrate, apply and develop work-ready skills, such as critical thinking, communication, and teamwork. This paper presents an exploratory case study research describing an online Project-based Learning (PjBL) experience aimed at tackling the challenge of decreasing the ecological footprint in the university campus generated by the local locomotion of students from university-home and/or home-university. The experience was implemented from February to June 2020, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 9 participating students enrolled in the ‘Industrial Management I’ course, part of the Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Tras-os-Montcs and Alto Douro (UTAD), Portugal. We firstly describe the course in terms of the key driving question, the learning goals, the educational activities, the collaboration among students, the scaffolding technologies, and the tangible artefacts produced. We further discuss the preliminary results of the study by taking into account the main tangible learning artefact produced by the students - a carpooling model proposal for the UTAD student community - as well as the data collected from a post, self-completion questionnaire on students' perceptions about the PjBL experience. Finally, we outline implications for the teaching practice and some concerns that need to be addressed in future course editions.

The 21st century challenges claim for a shift in engineering education to a broader socio-cultural understanding of the engineer’s role and responsibility in society, putting Critical Thinking (CT), teamwork and oral communication skills into the forefront. This paper proposes an innovative integrated model to design and deliver high-quality CT educational activities, based both on the use of the CRITHINKEDU educational protocol and the Paul-Elder CT framework, altogether with the combination of different active learning strategies, such as structured questioning, problem-based learning, role play, and cooperative learning. The model was tested during the ‘Critical Thinking Day’ workshop, which brought together 8 labor market professionals, 150 students and 25 teachers from different disciplinary fields and educational levels to critically solve real-world problem situations. The results of the post-questionnaire on participants’ perceptions showed that the experience impacted them positively, indicating great potential for its replication in the engineering educational context. Although future research is needed to validate the model, the study herein presented is the first attempt towards this achievement.

Taking in account the conclusions of our previous case-study in the civil engineering course at UTAD (University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal) this work presents the results of a case study in an energy engineering undergraduate course. Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of collected data, it examines students' attitudes towards web-based peer assessment, distinguishing their role as reviewers or as feedback receivers. It identifies which factors are related to students' use and appreciation of feedback. Moreover, an analysis of the type of feedback is presented in an attempt to evaluate students' written communication skills. The results of this study allow deepening the reflexion on how to improve the design and implementation of future web-based peer assessment tasks.

Peer-assessed online collaborative writing is of growing importance in recent research on higher education. Based on the analysis of quantitative and qualitative collected data, this paper presents the results of an exploratory case study in a graduate civil engineering course at the University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal. After an overall presentation of the activity, it examines students' attitudes towards online peer assessment and identifies which factors are related to students' use and appreciation of feedback. In addition, an analysis of the type of feedback is presented in an attempt to evaluate students' written communication skills. The results of this exploratory investigation provide indications on how to improve the design and implementation of future peer assessment tasks and raise questions on the involvement of peer/teacher grading in the use of feedback.