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This chapter analyzes the way in which challenge-based learning (CBL) is conceptualized and used in a private university in Puebla, Mexico, to promote social innovation. The university has recently changed its educational model, incorporating more integrative teaching and learning methodologies. The university has considered the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially the first goal to end poverty and the 10th regarding reducing inequality. These goals are relevant because the university is located in the state of Puebla, which has ranked fifth in the country (out of 32) in terms of poverty, especially in rural areas, where 58% of the population is living in poverty or extreme poverty conditions (CONEVAL, 2018). An example of a successful CBL project will be presented, showing how students have worked with their professors, community experts, and other stakeholders. In 2020, the university was recognized by the Times Higher Education World University Ranking as the number one university in Mexico to fight poverty based on the United Nations SDGs because of its CBL activities and social projects. Through these projects, students, administrators, and professors put into practice and develop different skills such as teamwork, analysis, facing new realities, innovating to design solutions to the problems in their environment, and beyond.

Challenge-based learning (CBL) has gained acceptance as a contemporary and progressive teaching pedagogy that provides a holistic and inclusive experience to learners in higher education (HE) institutions. However, its lack of appeal to non-STEM subjects and the need for further development, particularly concerning improved approaches, have been recognized. It seems that CBL runs the risk of becoming a portmanteau pedagogy that blends aspects of problem-based learning, project-based learning, and situated learning, as opposed to its development as an effective pedagogy tool. This points to a lack of a formal implementation framework, code of practice, and standard procedures for its delivery. We argue that blending a design thinking (DT) pedagogy with CBL can potentially provide the stability that CBL currently lacks. At the same time, it also presents a more inclusive proposition to potential non-STEM audiences. Thus, in this chapter, we seek to interrogate the intersectionality between CBL and DT literature in the context of HE teaching and learning with a view of establishing CBL as a pedagogy in its own right. We attempt to achieve this by systematically analyzing the separate literature to reveal the synergies and common touchpoints.

Challenge-based learning (CBL) is a trending educational concept in engineering education. The literature suggests that there is a growing variety in CBL implementations, stemming from the flexible and abstract definition of CBL that is shaped by teachers' perceptions. The chapter discusses how the CBL concept has been developed at Eindhoven University of Technology and describes the development and use of two educational resources aimed to facilitate conceptualization, design, and research of CBL for curriculum designers and teachers. The first resource is a set of CBL design principles for framing the variety of CBL and providing teachers with advice about how to develop CBL courses within an overall CBL curriculum. The second resource is a curriculum-mapping instrument called the CBL compass, which aims at mapping CBL initiatives and identifying gaps, overlaps, and misalignments in CBL implementation at a curriculum level. Both CBL design principles and the CBL compass have been developed by combining insights from theory and practical examples of CBL at TU/e into a higher order model of vision, teaching and learning, and support. We discuss the two educational instruments and showcase their application in the Eindhoven Engineering Education (E³) program, and we discuss preliminary findings and insights. The chapter concludes with recommendations for future practice and research.

Challenge-based learning (CBL), the experiential learning and pedagogical approach through which learners (students, instructors, companies, stakeholders, communities) are actively involved in designing a sustainable solution for a real-world problem, is gaining momentum in various higher education institutions around the world. Despite this multiplication of learning initiatives, evaluation in CBL is still an overlooked topic both by scholars and practitioners. Moreover, assessment is closely linked to the teaching and learning process and can also influence the evolution of the challenge because it is directly involved in the feedback, teamwork, and relationship between students, instructors, challenge providers, and stakeholders. Explaining why assessment is so important in CBL is one of the objectives of this chapter. Therefore, in line with the spirit of the handbook, the aim of this chapter is also to inspire, and give suggestions and tools for novel ways of assessing the learning process in CBL.

Through a challenge launched by the University of Trento, involving a local nonprofit integrative health fund, we understood the importance to integrate the formative with the summative assessment, to evaluate not only the final results but also the learning process. We experienced the fundamentals and the difficulties of self-directed learning through which students are called to codesign their learning experience, monitor teamwork, and assess their progress. Support and guidance from instructors are required to be successful in this cultural shift through which teachers are no more traditional professors and students are finally the experts in the challenge.

This chapter presents a case study of building TU/e innovation Space, a unique learning hub for developing, sustaining, and disseminating research-informed challenge-based learning (CBL) practices at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). This learning hub for education innovation fosters the collaboration between students, industry, research, and societal organizations and drives the continued development of the CBL approach at TU/e. The chapter presents insights from the development of CBL at TU/e innovation Space, drawn from postcourse evaluation surveys of two flagship courses, the innovation Space Bachelor End Project (ISBEP; third year bachelor level) and the innovation Space Project (ISP; master's course level). Analysis of the data shows that students generally rated the courses highly. As the main motivation to choose these courses, students cited the desire to do something else than their own major, aiming for interdisciplinarity and breadth of knowledge, and wanting to do something real-life or business-like. Students also liked the ability to choose their own project, but in some cases, struggled with the structure of the assessment. We also briefly describe academics' perspective on running CBL courses at the hub and present additional activities related to the full learning ecosystem of the hub. Finally, we describe some of the future directions in terms of CBL research and educational developments at the hub.

Since 2009, different challenge-based learning (CBL) activities have been implemented at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), with a shared objective: provide the students a learning experience that covers the acquisition of technical knowledge, soft skills, and other generic competences, while bringing them closer to the current technologies and industry. The shared background of these activities is the participation of Master's students of aerospace engineering in the preliminary design of a space mission. During the 18/19 academic year, the UPM participated in the 2018 ESA Concurrent Engineering Challenge (ESA CEC), where the students complemented their technical knowledge with dedicated training in Concurrent Engineering and learnt how ESA assesses the feasibility of real space missions. This experience further motivated the organization of the UPM CEC, which was first executed in the 19/20 academic year (and is expected to be carried out in future courses). After a decade implementing CBL, different research methodologies and instruments have been used to evaluate its impact on different aspects of the learning process. In this chapter, we describe the main CBL activities performed, focusing on the instruments used to evaluate them. We draw attention to the main advantages and disadvantages of implementing CBL from a learning perspective, as well as the associated impact in the student's motivation and student–teacher relationship. In many cases, different teaching scenarios are assessed, thus making it possible to compare CBL against traditional methods.

As the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has stated in their original definition of quality (ISO 8402:1994), quality is “the totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.” The authors consequently believe that not only learning from challenges – the relevant entity – should be intended as a task aimed to satisfy the needs of both challenged learners and challenged businesses, but also that not all the entity's needs are stated from the beginning of the process.

These were the methodological assumptions of a workshop on destination management held from October 2020 to February 2021 in the frame of tourism studies at the University of Bergamo. Though the workshop was entirely run through digital channels in a time of pandemic, it successfully provided five destination management organizations (DMOs) and an association among hosts in the Bergamo Alps with a variety of digital communication products.

The workshop was special in terms of satisfaction expressed by participants as well as the involved DMOs. The participants' deliveries became active components of the destinations' policies. A professional video came as a welcome addition.

Implied needs which the workshop came across – namely, doubts on the reliability of tourism data, cooperation among local actors, prerequisites in building a new website, the role of food and recipes in promoting a destination identity, best practices in guiding guests through planned itineraries, and the role of a city administration in controlling overtourism – were identified while researching and producing.

This chapter provides a critical discussion of challenge-based learning (CBL) within future trends in higher education (HE). It explores how CBL may address challenges facing higher education institutions (HEIs) in response to these future trends by using a framework of common CBL characteristics. Clear recommendations for CBL practitioners to succeed in CBL implementation within the ever-changing HE landscape are presented. It complements previous chapters on CBL case studies by situating CBL in the broader HE space. A discussion on the interrelationships between these characteristics and predictions on the future integration of CBL in HE concludes this chapter. These macrolevel discussions of CBL will be of interest to government officials, managers, business stakeholders, teachers, policy advisors, and academic teachers. Insights on the future institutional impact of CBL, how it may improve business and academic collaborations, how it aligns with sustainability and transversal skills policies, and where CBL is situated in the post-COVID-19 landscape are discussed. Ultimately, it argues that CBL is part of a pedagogical toolkit to meet future trends in HE.