Yes, we can: Empowering 21st century skills in a large introductory classroom through project-based learning

Fostering ‘21st Century Skills’ is becoming increasingly important in view of the rapidly changing world, with transferable competencies such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and communication being crucial to succeed in work and society. Adapting university teaching to these requirements necessitates the development of appropriate curricula, courses, and teaching materials, as well as examinations that can adequately measure these competencies. Various teaching methods are suited to convey transferable competencies, in particular student-centred methods like project-based learning (PBL), where learners work collaboratively on authentic problems. Many studies demonstrated that PBL improves understanding, team performance, motivation, and critical thinking, in contrast to conventional teaching formats where students are exposed to the material more passively with few opportunities to actively apply concepts and question them critically. The flipped classroom model can also contribute to fostering ‘21st Century Skills’ as shifting knowledge transfer to self-study creates space in courses for activities that train social and personal skills through discussions, group work, or PBL. Promoting transferable skills is especially challenging in bachelor programs where courses are usually attended by many students with heterogeneous background knowledge, posing major challenges for lecture design. Thus, traditional, teacher-centred methods are often the format of choice. Here, we describe the development of a flipped classroom with a particular focus on project-based activities training social and personal skills for a large introductory biology lecture. By transferring part of the knowledge acquisition to the self-study phase, in-class sessions became free for project-based group work where students design experiments to study the genetic basis of diseases. At the end of the course, the groups present their projects in a poster session to their peers, the lecturers, and experts. Besides applying the knowledge acquired in the course, the group projects allow students to work on ‘real-world problems’ relevant to their field of study. Tutors (student teaching assistants) support students in their projects by providing feedback, clarifying questions, and evaluating the final project outcomes. The interdisciplinary nature of the project promotes problem-solving skills and critical thinking, while the didactic setting allows students to train their social competencies (cooperation & teamwork). Importantly, the group phase also impacts the skills development of the tutors, as they can expand their skills in the social and personal areas as well. Implementing PBL to promote 21st Century Skills’ in large, heterogenous classes represents several challenges including infrastructural constraints, organizational complexity, and student motivation. This paper describes how a flipped classroom approach can support the development of competencies by PBL and suggests solutions to address challenges associated with this teaching format. Our analysis of student feedback collected over multiple years indicates that the project-based approach is effective in key aspects, such as group productivity, student-tutor interaction, and student motivation, and suggests that for certain student groups, fostering a stronger sense of project relatedness remains an area for future improvement.