Course assignment - Reflection 5

Problem-based learning has been used for over 40 years. Problem-based learning (PBL) is characterized as an instructional method that initiates students’ learning by creating a need to solve an authentic problem. During the problem-solving process, students construct content knowledge and develop problem-solving skills as well as self-directed learning skills while working toward a solution to the problem (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003). The problems usually consist of a description of observable phenomena, situations, or events. Problem-based learning was first developed in medical education in the 1950s (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003). PBL was implemented to provide a foundation for students’ unsatisfactory clinical performance. In the 1980s, the wider spread of PBL in the United States was accelerated by the GPEP report (Report of the Panel on the General Professional Education of the Physician and College Preparation for Medicine) sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (Muller, 1984). PBL has become a prominent pedagogical method in medical schools and health-science-related programs throughout the world, including North America, the Netherlands, England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and India (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003).In medical education for instance, these problems often take the form of a description of a patient, presenting a complaint with a number of signs and symptoms (Schmidt 1994).

In the 1990s the adoption of PBL in education outside of the medical field occurred in K-12 grades. Since then PBL has been used by a number of scholars and educators. PBL is effective in a variety of content areas – mathematics, science, history, literature, engineering, and microeconomics (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003). A proposal idea can be based on how to implement problem-based learning in engineering classes. Also, how to effectively use PBL in technology designed lessons. Another proposal idea is how to find multiple approaches to problem solving with relation to real world significance in science.

In science education, the problem may consist of the description of the behavior of a block of wood on an incline plain (Schmidt 1994). Groups of students are tasked to discuss problems and elaborate on undefined explanations for the phenomena in terms of some underlying process or mechanism. Most of the learning occurs within small groups rather than lectures. While working on the problem, the group is guided by a teacher or tutor. The teacher or tutors task is to stimulate a discussion to provide students with some subject-matter information that is necessary to evaluate the progress being made and to monitor the extent to which each student contributes to the group’s tasks. The progress then should be based on the knowledge that students acquire around the problems rather than the discipline so how is PBL learning assessed?

The PBL learning process normally involves the following steps (Hung, Bailey, and Jonassen 2003).

• Students in groups of five to eight encounter and reason through the problem. They attempt to define and bound the problem and set learning goals by identifying what they know already, what hypotheses or conjectures they can think of, what they need to learn to better understand the dimensions of the problem, and what learning activities are required and who will perform them.

• During self-directed study, individual students complete their learning assignments. They collect and study resources and prepare reports to the group.

• Students share their learning with the group and revisit the problem, generating additional hypotheses and rejecting others based on their learning.

• At the end of the leaning period (usually one week), students summarize and integrate their learning.

PBL can be used in a wide variety of student populations such as those who are gifted and talented or special needs students throughout all grade levels. To sum up PBL learning, the steps are:

1. Problem identification

2. Identify the information

3. Generate possible solutions

4. Identify most viable “best” solution

5. Report best solution to the class.

Hung, W., Bailey, J. H., and Jonassen, D. H. (2003). Exploring the tensions of problem-based learning: insights from research. In Problem-Based Learning in the Information Age, edited by D. Knowlton and D. Sharp, pp. 13–23. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2011). Models of teaching. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Schmidt, H. (1994). Problem-based learning: An introduction. Instructional Science, 22(4), 247-250. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.lib.utep.edu/stable/23369986