A Teaching and Learning Blueprint for Increasing Engagement in Challenge-Based Learning

Challenge-Based Learning is an active learning approach that involves students in identifying and addressing real-world problems. It follows a three-phase framework that includes the Engage, Investigate and Act stages. However, despite its name, and due to its naturally initial fuzziness, during the Engage phase engagement is low compared to the other two phases, namely when the challenge is perceived to be far beyond the students’ competences. This is why it is important that students become more comfortable with the challenge and develop a sense of ownership over it. This paper aims at presenting a teaching and learning blueprint for increasing engagement in CBL’s phase Engage, by guiding students on the identification of a purpose, helping them anticipate the impact of their potential solutions on the community and the world, which can motivate them to engage more deeply with the challenge. It also suggests that progress can be assessed during this phase through rubrics aligned with its three defining moments. Finally, it discusses the teaching and learning context in which the proposed blueprint will be implemented: a Portuguese masters course on Web Communication and Technologies, where the Big Idea is defined in collaboration with external entities, and where design thinking is the main method.