Biomedical Students' Motivation with Project Based Learning: A Case Study

One of the teacher's first goals should be to motivate students to learn. Involving students in the learning process using project-based learning could be a useful and powerful tool to prepare the students for them professional future. As part of a degree course in Biomedical Engineering, from a Portuguese University, students were asked to look at society and identify a possible failure related to the biomedical field. From the identification of this fault, the project consisted in the planning and its possible resolution. In this article we present the case study of a student's team, whose project was candidate and winner for a national prize in the field of health innovation. Despite the particularization of this case study, the students considered the experience innovative and simultaneously motivating. They also highlighted the added value of a project going beyond the classroom. Therefore, in addition to allowing them to obtain classification to the curricular unit, this type of teaching and learning could have a special impact on civil society.