Starting out with problem based learning

[Demetri Orlando]

Ok, let's say you are interested in PBL but aren't quite sure where or how to start implementing this into your teaching. What are some steps that educators can take to give it a try?

[Demetri Orlando]

This article mentions a few ideas... "One place to start is to take your exams and work backwards. Take those word problems and essay questions and make cases out of them... it's hard work revamping a course into problems, 'but after you've done it, the whole course becomes so exciting, you'd never go back.' She uses a modified form of PBL, combining mini-lectures on some days with in-class, small group work on problem sets later in the week. She sees in-class work, with all the resources provided, as a necessity for students. in the beginning she worried about coverage and struggled with the tutor's role, wanting to keep the students on the "right" path in their discussions. "I had trouble with that at first," she admits, "but the more I've done it, the more I've come to trust students to figure things out. Giving up control is hard, but if you let the learning happen, it will. she's not quite ready to use PBL for everything. For her the problems move students to apply and integrate material and thus to actually learn it in ways they otherwise wouldn't. "I was teaching courses with lots of information and students weren't remembering three-fourths of it and I was discouraged," she says. Now, it's different: "When they apply it--working in a group, figuring it out for themselves--they remember it." This article also suggests that the class be divided into groups of up to 5 students for the term.

[Demetri Orlando]

This page from Google's cache looks like it is a paper written in 1996 for a class at SDSU. It has this nice list of ideas in defining PBL that should be helpful for beginners:

1. An effective problem must first engage students' interest, and motivate them to probe for deeper understanding of the concepts being introduced. It should relate the subject to the real world, so that students have a stake in solving the problem.

2. Good problems require students to make decisions or judgements based on facts, information, logic and/or rationalization. Students should be required to justify all decisions and reasoning based on the principles being learned. Problems should require students to define what assumptions are needed (and why), what information is relevant, and/or what steps or procedures are required in order to solve them.

3. Cooperation from all members of the student group should be necessary in order to effectively work through a good problem. The length and complexity of the problem or case must be controlled so that students realize that a "divide and conquer" effort will not be an effective problem-solving strategy. For example, a problem that consists of a series of straight-forward "end of chapter" questions will be divided by the group and assigned to individuals and then reassembled for the assignment submission. In this case, students end up learning less not more.

4. The initial questions in the problem should have one or more of the following characteristics so that all students in the groups are initially drawn into a discussion of the topic:
open-ended, not limited to one correct answer
connected to previously learned knowledge
controversial issues that will elicite diverse opinions
This strategy keeps the students functioning as a group, drawing on each other's knowledge and ideas, rather than encouraging them to work individually at the outset of the problem.

5. The content objectives of the course should be incorporated into the problems, connecting previous knowledge to new concepts, and connecting new knowledge to concepts in other courses and/or disciplines.

[Demetri Orlando]

I loved what Amy said about her big sign at the front of the room that says "Does it make sense?" Maybe she'll post a photo here :)

I'm also trying to remember what she said about learning from mistakes.