Understanding Problem Based Learning

Engaging and motivating students--especially the least motivated learners--is a daily challenge. But with the process of problem-based learning (PBL), any teacher can create an exciting, active classroom where students themselves eagerly build problem-solving skills while learning the content necessary to apply them. With problem-based learning, students' work begins with an ill-defined problem. Key to this problem is how it explicitly links something important in students daily lives to the classroom. This motivational feature is vital as students define the what, where, and how of resolving the problem situation. Problem-based learning may sound potentially chaotic and haphazard, but it rests on the firm foundation of a teacher's work behind the scenes. The teacher develops a problem long before students see it, specifically choosing the skills and content the problem will emphasize and matching those to curriculum and standards. Though a PBL problem will have no "right" answer, the teacher structures the experience so that specific learning takes place as students generate the problem-solving steps, research issues, and produce a final product. The teacher guides without leading, assists without directing.

Like most good educational interventions, problem-based learning (PBL) did not grow out of theory, but out of a practical problem. Medical students were bored, dropping out, and unable to apply what they had learned in lectures to their practical experiences a couple of years later. Neurologist Howard S. Barrows reversed the sequence, presenting students with patient problems to solve in small groups and requiring them to seek relevant knowledge in an effort to solve those problems. Out of his work, PBL was born. The application of PBL approaches has now spread far beyond medical education. Today, PBL is used at levels from elementary school to adult education, in disciplines ranging across the humanities and sciences, and in both academic and corporate settings. This book aims to take stock of developments in the field and to bridge the gap between practice and the theoretical tradition, originated by Barrows, that underlies PBL techniques.

“This book closes a gap in the PBL literature. It is a thoroughly researched, well documented and engagingly written three part harmony addressing conceptual frames, recurring themes, and broadening horizons. An essential addition to your library.” Professor Karl A. Smith, University of Minnesota “…a comprehensive guide for those new to PBL, and suitable for those new to teaching or for the more experienced looking for a new challenge.” Dr Liz Beaty, Director (Learning and Teaching), HEFCE “This book vividly articulates the key ideas of PBL and provides new PBL practitioners with key guiding posts for its implementation. It is an excellent contribution to the art of using PBL.” Associate Professor Oon-Seng Tan, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore ·What is problem-based learning? ·How can it be used in teaching? · How does problem-based learning affect staff and students? · How do we assess and evaluate it? Despite the growth in the use of problem-based learning since it was first popularised, there have been no resources to examine the foundations of the approach and offer straightforward guidance to those wishing to explore, understand, and implement it. This book describes the theoretical foundations of problem-based learning and is a practical source for staff wanting to implement it. The book is designed as a text that not only explores the foundations of problem-based learning but also answers many of the frequently-asked questions about its use. It has also been designed to develops the reader's understanding beyond implementation, including issues such as academic development, cultural, diversity, assessment, evaluation and curricular models of problem-based learning. Foundations of Problem-based Learning is a vital resource for lecturers in all disciplines who want to understand problem-based learning and implement it effectively in their teaching.

In this book, the authors address some basic problems in the learning of biomedical science, medicine, and the other health sciences. Students in most medical schools, especially in basic science courses, are required to memorize a large number of "facts," facts which may or may not be relevant to medical practice. Problem-based learning has two fundamental postulates--the learning through problem-solving is much more effective for creating a body of knowledge usable in the future, and that physician skills most important for patients are problem-solving skills, rather than memory skills. This book presents the scientific basis of problem-based learning and goes on to describe the approaches to problem-based medical learning that have been developed over the years at McMaster University, largely by Barrows and Tamblyn.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach that has the capacity to create vibrant and active learning environments in higher education. However, both experienced PBL practitioners and those new to PBL often find themselves looking for guidance on how to engage and energise a PBL curriculum. New Approaches to Problem-based Learning: Revitalising your Practice in Higher Education provides that guidance from a range of different, complementary perspectives. Leading practitioners in the field as well as new voices in PBL teaching and learning have collaborated to produce this text. Each chapter provides practical and experienced accounts of issues and ideas for PBL, as well as a strong theoretical and evidence base. Whether you are an experienced PBL practitioner, or new to the processes and principles of PBL, this book will help you to find ways of revitalising and enriching your practice and of enhancing the learning experience in a range of higher education contexts.

This book discloses ways in which learners and teachers manage complex and diverse learning in the context of their lives in a fragile and often incoherent world. It explores both the theory and the practice of problem-based learning and considers the implications of implementing problem-based learning organizationally.

Developed in the context of health sciences education in the late 1960s, problem-based learning (PBL) is now widely deployed as an education methodology. Its problem-solving, collaborative, student-centred ethos is seen as a more appropriate system of pedagogy than earlier ‘chalk-and-talk’ modes. Focusing on its use in clinical education, this collection of recent scholarship on PBL examines the ways in which PBL is both conceived and implemented in clinical education. The work has a dual emphasis, research-driven on the one hand, while on the other assessing new methodologies to explore how problem-based curricula support the achievement of students’ learning outcomes in the context of clinical education. The chapters draw on studies that explore PBL both theoretically and empirically. The volume’s eclecticism capitalises on the growing body of empirical research into PBL evaluations. It balances this with studies analysing the relatively new area of discourse-based research on PBL-in-action, whose focus has been to interrogate the ‘how’ of student learning in curricula with PBL content.This publication will be of interest to clinical teachers, curriculum designers and those interested in innovations in the scholarship of teaching and learning in PBL curricula.