Engineering educators are facing high demands as they are challenged to create learning environments that can not only better teach technical skills, but also incorporate process skills and foster other graduate attributes. Problem-based learning, known as PBL, and its variants have been deemed adequate for meeting the needs of educators and society in preparing the engineers of the 21st century. With pedagogical innovations like PBL, however, comfortable routines related to the structure and flow of classroom activity are disrupted for both educators and students. In addition to having to manage changes within their classroom processes and routines, engineering educators must also interact and operate within the larger systems in which their classrooms are embedded, the university. The structure and culture of the university system may facilitate or hinder the teaching intentions and goals of educators, as this larger system can impose its own set of tensions.
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