A Study on the Problem-Based Learning with Industry Co-operative Program for Effective PLM Education

Abstract

Generally, a PLM education program in university consists of lectures of theory, software lab and software development training as an advanced subject. Most industries want more than these, such as practical problem solving capabilities, teamwork skills and engineering communications including human relationship, rhetoric, technical writing, presentation and etc. Problem-Based Learning is a problem- stimulated and student-centered learning method, and an innovative education strategy for collaborative and self-directed learning by applying real world problems. Education paradigm changes from “teaching” to “learning” accomplished by team working, and students are encouraged to develop,\r\npresent, explain and defense their ideas, suggestions or solutions of a problem, and the “cooperative learning” proceeds spontaneously during team operations. Co-operative education program is an integrated academic model and a structured educational program combining classroom learning with productive\r\nwork experience in a field related to a student’s academic or career goals. Based on the partnership between academic institutions and industries, students are engaged in real and productive ”work” in the industry, in contrast with merely observing. In this paper, PBL with Co-op program is suggested as an effective approach for PLM education, and we made and operated a PBL-based education course with industry co-op program. The Co-op education in industry accompanied with the PBL course in university can improve practical problem solving capabilities of students, including modeling and management of P3R(Product, Process, resource and Plant) using commercial PLM software tools. By the result, we found this to be an effective strategy for helping students, professors and industries succeed in engineering education, especially PLM area.