doing

educational philosophy is seen as one possible answer for closing the gap between

industry expectations for graduate´s working life skills and the actual learning enhancement

provided by the academia. The question is not so much why, nor it is what. For these we have

had an abundance of answers since early 1960´s. The question is how? How to implement

hands-on doing focusing on relevant working life skills such as project working capabilities in

a teamwork setting, design thinking and communication skills, in addition to the actual

disciplinary knowledge. This paper reports preliminary results from a work-in-progress study

that analyses the course structure, teaching philosophy and learning outcomes of a course that

aims to provide relevant product development, team–based project working and project

management skills in an open-ended environment to students. The key research question was

what kind of learning outcomes were achieved during the course. Secondly how do these

results reflect on the intended learning outcomes. The course is an academic year long

Product development project –course run by Aalto University and has been up and running

using the same course structure since the year 1997. The course is viewed on its structure,

teaching methodology, and most importantly through its intended learning outcomes. Data

gathering included eleven semi-structured thematic interviews. Analysis was done using

approach and elements from grounded theory method. The results show that the structure,

teaching methods and the learning outcomes of the course are aligned and correlate with the

intended learning outcomes. According to the preliminary findings the courses main learning

outcome is that the students have been able to construct meaning for different processes and

components in order to achieve successful team–based project work in a product development

context. Processes and components include areas such as team work, project management,communication, doing instead of passively following, working remotely and the importance

of prototyping.