- What exactly IS PBL? How is it implemented? How much time does it take? What kind of resources are needed to incorporate PBL methods?
Curriculum development and instruction system, that simultaneously develops both problem-solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and skills by placing students in the active role of problem solvers confronted with an ill-structured problem that mirrors real-world problems. There are six steps to implementation: 1) Present the problem statement, 2) list what is
known, 3) develop a problem statement, 4) list what is needed, 5) list the recommendations, solutions and/or hypotheses, 6) present and support the solution. Patricia Wilson proposes a possible 7th step, which would be a discussion of the implications of the solution. Students should be given as much time as needed. They need sufficient time to reveal their points of view. In terms of resources, students may access written texts, interview experts, use audio-visual aids, and the computer.
- What has the experience been at other schools/disciplines where it has been tried? How are those schools/disciplines similar to yours? Are those schools/disciplines so different that it's unlikely that PBL would be doable in your situation?
(your answer goes here)
- What are some good examples of PBL problems and what characteristics do they have in common?
(your answer goes here)
- What kind of activities do students do while engaged in a PBL project? What kinds of thinking skills and collaboration skills do they develop?
Students are able to be involved in any imaginable activity that generates information that usable to solve the problem. There are no limitations on the kinds of activities that could be used. Any limitations of activities reside in the brains of the students, themselves, and the more experience a student has with PBL, the more those cumulative experiences will facilitate the release of more imagination for exploring more activities. Students will eventually become more adept at implementing all the traditional thinking skills that are implied in the scientific approach to discovery and analysis. As they learn to rely on the cooperation of other students, since no one student can possibly cover the whole world of resources by him or herself, students will come to appreciate the help they can receive from others and will learn to collaborate even more.
- How inter-disciplinary can PBL be?
PBL may be extensively inter-disciplinary. Since, in a theoretical sense, everything under the sun in interconnected, then, also theoretically, there is something in every discipline that can inform the topic subsumbed in any other discipline.
- Is PBL implemented the same everywhere?
No. PBL may be implemented in as many ways as there are people working in PBL to solve their problems. Again, as in question 4, students are limited only by the narrowly constructed imagination they need to explore how to solve their problem.
- Is PBL a complete success? A partial success? What are its
weaknesses?
The opinions are still out. PBL fosters independent thinking and problem solving skills, dissipates student boredom and grounds factualinformation into real world experiences, and encourages collaborative learning. Problems come when students assume responsibility for their own learning and teachers (now tutors) relinquish control of stucturing learning. Some students feel lost and uncomfortable with assuming authority for their own learning. They are fearful of not being in a structured enviornment that helps to determine grades. The especially slow students have been shown to lack the initiative to work well in this environment. Teachers need to develop new forms of assessing grades, course design takes a very long time (SIU's medical school program has taken 25 years to put into place) and assessment in an on-going process. Testing factual information among PBL learners tends to be low as spposed to the scores of traditional learners. The task of PBL is to facilitate learning of students rather than to convey knowledge. On a postive not, this skill of problem solving is one sorely needed in today's world of complex problems to be solved
- What is the philosophy that underlies the design of PBL? How is it
congruent with the goals of a good education and the characteristics of an
ideal learning environment?
Problem Based Learning (PBL) is an educatonal model based on the apprenticeship method of learning by doing. First developed in medical education it develops problem solving and self-educational abilities, acquisition of integrated knowledge based structure around real world problems. It is a natural way of learning by doing, counter effects of boredom and irrelevance in traditional learning styles, fosters collaboration and team building skills, thereby fullfilling the goals of a contemporary good education. Because the student assumes responsibility for their own learning they could become life long learners. Ideally the enviornment of using the world as a resource PBL allows the student to 1) reason through any problem 2) design a self directed study 3) apply new knowledge to the original problem, critique, refin, and synthesize learning and develop overarching concepts and abstractions that will allow the student o anticipage solutions to future problems.
- In Bridges' book, Problem Based Learning for Administrators, he describes criteria for evaluating pupils--what are some practical
suggestions you could incoporate?
Suggestions include 1) creating assessment instruments that have specific goals that can be measured by a grade system 2) build into the instructional design a feedback process for the student to correct errors 3) counter student fears of unstructured environments with real life applications, for example, student portfolio that will be part of final student resume for professional work.
- How does PBL compare to traditional instruction?
PBL is more focused on the abilities of the students to identify situations with significant real life meanings, having highly undefined boundaries and "knowledge dissonant" in nature that is the students are expected to find a cognitive challenge, which represents an opportunity to motivate the student to "own a problem" and be able to offer a personal approach, not necessarily "a solution" to it. The students then should become active participants inthe search for relevant information and resources that can providepotential solutions, i.e. "the students become self-directed learners... and then fade. Traditional instruction is more teacher centered,where the objectives are mostly handed down to the students, and thestudents strive to figure out "what the teacher wants"
- What kinds of teachers can use PBL? What kind of personality or other qualities do they need? How do teachers feel about PBL after they have done it for awhile?
Under PBL, teachers are expected play more the role of "metacognitive coaches" that is, non-dictating, cognitive cheerleaders who TIP, RATHER THAN DIRECT the students to search for their own proposed "solutions" to fit the situations presented. Although hard at first, most teachers learn to enjoy their roles under PBL from allowing the students to search and explore meaningful situations and develop knowledge from their own interventions
- What kinds of learners are best suited to PBL? How do students feel about PBL?
Initially, students who are willing and able to take on cognitive challenges and develop self-directed searching and learning skills will feel more at ease with PBL. Eventually, and with the proper approaches and phase-in methods, all students should be able to reasonable levels of aptitude to do PBL. Because of its differences with traditional methods, many students will feel uneasy at first with PBL but eventually most students do become aware and appreciate the value of the real-life approaches of PBL.
- The Bottom Line: Should universities adopt PBL for use in all
classes? Will you?
Because of its nature, PBL approaches will tend to be more successful in situations and classes where new knowledge is better learned through self-directed, cognitive challenge case studies. Therefore, PBL should not be appropriate where this is not the case. PBL has proven helpful in many cases where these approaches exist or can be developed. Therefore not all classes at a university will be better served through a PBL approach
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