Inculcating Multidisciplinary Learning in Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Curriculum through Problem-Based Learning

Abstract— Recently, the multidisciplinary engineering education has been growing rapidly reflecting current technological concern. Engineering graduates from cross domains like mechanical engineering, computer science and engineering, electronics engineering in current market are in great demand. The National Education Policy NEP-2020 supports learning from multidiscipline in developing curriculum which is integrated and flexible in various learning environments. The goal of the multidisciplinary approach is to produce new age engineers who can become changemakers in dynamically changing industry. One such industry emerging rapidly in recent decades is the Electric Vehicles (EV). Students in the third year of undergraduate engineering from multiple disciplines take up an open elective on Electric Vehicles (EV) as a part of their curriculum. Multidisciplinary learning is essential for engineering students since sustainable transportation with EVs necessitates a thorough understanding across several engineering domains. Students from different educational backgrounds frequently encounter difficulties due to the lack of disciplinary knowledge as the EV course is multidisciplinary. To address all these issues, the study in this paper proposes a conceptual framework for designing an Electric Vehicle (EV) course by integrating with Problem-Based Learning (PBL). To provide the students with the multidisciplinary learning experience we present this paper as a case-study on how the engineering courses can be integrated with PBL. Keywords — Problem-Based Learning (PBL), Electric Vehicles, Multidisciplinary Learning, Collaborative Learning, Learning Theories