This open access book examines the history and prospect of student-centered learning models in engineering education, including problem- and project-based learning (PBL) models, as a response to living in and with chaos. The emphasis on student-centered learning has transformed the learning paradigm and provided opportunities to design and organize new curricula and to experience educational transformation processes. Today, we face new challenges because of ecological, climate, societal, and technological instabilities, and studies show that young people are becoming more anxious. The old PBL models may no longer be adequate and must be developed to address the self, emotions, generic competencies, and the ability to act and exist in a chaotic environment. Especially interdisciplinary project collaboration is gaining traction in engineering education, and there is a need to reflect the learning of generic competencies with an emphasis on both complex problems and chaos, as well as learning how to operate cognitively and emotionally within and across interdisciplinary boundaries.

Anette Kolmos is a professor in Engineering Education and PBL at Aalborg University, Denmark. She is the Founding Director (Director 2014-2023) for the UNESCO category 2 Centre: Aalborg Centre for Problem Based Learning in Engineering Science and Sustainability. UNESCO Chair in PBL in EE (2006-2014). Guest professor at KTH, Stockholm (2012-2017). Guest professor at University of Technology, Petronas, Malaysia (2026-2028). She was President of SEFI from 2009 to 2011. She was awarded the SEFI Leonardo da Vinci Medal in 2023, IFEES Global Award for Excellence in EE in 2013.