Group Creativity Development in Engineering Students in a Problem and Project Based Learning Environment Chunfang Zhou 1 , Jens Dalsgaard Nielsen 2 , Anette Kolmos 3 , Xiangyun Du 4 1 UNESCO CHAIR in Problem Based Learning, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University, Denmark (chunfang@plan.aau.dk) 2 Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Denmark 3 UNESCO CHAIR in Problem Based Learning, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University, Denmark 4 UNESCO CHAIR in Problem Based Learning, Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University, Denmark Abstract Future engineers will embark on solving complicated and practical problems with skills of creative thinking and communication in teamwork, which make engineering education facing the new challenge of developing students‟ group creativity. Group creativity is generally described as creation, development, evaluation and promotion of novel and useful ideas in teamwork. As generated in relationship and interactive process of communication among group members, it has a close link to “construction of knowledge” in learning under the social constructivist framework in this paper. That means for developing group creativity, education will offer opportunities for learner engagement and emphasis exchanges of perspectives, collaboration and knowledge construction and co-construction, as well as opportunities to develop outcomes which may be novel. In growing number of engineering education practices, problem and project based learning (PBL) is considered as one good example regarding preparing for students with the expected skills for group creativity. Aalborg University in Denmark is famous with PBL model. Some important issues like gender and engineering, learning assessment, curriculum design, etc. have been discussed under this model. However, literature showed that little attention has been paid to group creativity in PBL environment. This paper thereby is expected to develop a new research issue and some new findings for contribution to relative research in the future. This paper examines group creativity development in engineering students in a PBL environment in Aalborg University in Denmark. Empirical data is drawn on a student satellite project. Some observations and interviews with focus on perceptions about influence of PBL on group creativity carried out with two students groups in this project. The analysis of the empirical data leads to the discussion about how engineering students develop group creativity in PBL context and how group creativity development is influenced by PBL context. Keywords: engineering education, group creativity, teamwork, PBL 1. Introduction In a growing number of engineering educational practices, students are expected to learn by teamwork in order to face the challenge of future workplace. For engineering is by its nature a cooperative enterprise, done by teams of people with different backgrounds, abilities, and responsibilities [1]. Accordingly, the skills associated with successful teamwork – creative and critical thinking, communication with others, project management, problem solving, etc. as well as the ability to respond to challenges by combing in new ways are demanded by future engineers. Consequently, group creativity which is generally defined as creation, development, evaluation and promotion of Proceedings of the 2nd International Research Symposium on PBL, 3-4 December 2009, Melbourne, Australia Page 1 of 8