Is engagement with a purpose the essence of active learning?

Abstract

In the 2009 edition of the conference on “Active Learning in Engineering Education”, there were several and fruitful discussions within a small workgroup about the essence of active learning. At the end we came with an attempt to sum up our whole discussion with one question. Our question is the same as the title of this essay. Taking this question as a starting point this article propose a specific purpose from which active learning can be based.