VKP Glossary

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Problem-Based Learning

From: "What is Inquiry-Based Learning?" From Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and Learning. Concept to Classroom web site, http://www.wnet.org/wnetschool/concept2class/month6/

Problem based learning is a widely used inquiry technique that involves having students learn by solving real-world problems through a series of steps, while working in groups. This technique is particularly popular in medical and law schools.

From: William Stepien and Shelagh Gallagher, "Problem-Based Learning: As Authentic as It Gets." Educational Leadership, Volume 50, Number 7, April 1993. http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/edlead/9304/stepien.html.

Through problem-based learning, students learn how to use an iterative process of assessing what they know, identifying what they need to know, gathering information, and collaborating on the evaluation of hypotheses in light of the data they have collected. Their teachers act as coaches and tutors: probing findings, hypotheses, and conclusions; sharing their thinking when students need a model; and attending to metacognitive growth by way of "time out" discussions on how thinking is progressing. These investigations of the connectedness and complexity of real-world problems nurture collaboration among learners, provide instructional tasks appropriately challenging for the targeted students, and promote performance assessments based upon the context of each learning situation.

Problem-based learning turns instruction topsy-turvy. Students meet an "ill-structured problem" before they receive any instruction. In the place of covering the curriculum, learners probe deeply into issues searching for connections, grappling with complexity, and using knowledge to fashion solutions. As with real problems, students encountering ill-structured problems will not have most of the relevant information needed to solve the problem at the outset. Nor will they know exactly what actions are required for resolution. After they tackle the problem, the definition of the problem may change. And even after they propose a solution, the students will never be sure they have made the right decision. They will have had the experience of having to make the best possible decision based on the information at hand.

From: http://www.isoc.org/inet2000/cdproceedings/inet98/4e/4e_3.htm#s8

In a problem-based learning environment, the instruction begins with the introduction of a real-world problem; students, provided with the instructor's guidance and resource material, are encouraged to dive into the problem, construct an individual understanding, and finally find an answer to the problem (Dillon and Zhu, 1997).

As noted by its name, problem-based learning relies on problems to drive the curriculum. The problems do not test skills; rather, they assist in development of the skills themselves. The problems are not meant to result in one, static solution, but rather solutions evolve as new information is gathered in an iterative process. As in anchored instruction, students solve the problems, while the teachers are coaches and facilitators who give only guidance on how to approach problems. Like the solutions that are found, there is more than one approach to solving the problem (Stepien and Gallagher, and Barrows, 1985).

See: Dillon, A., & Zhu, E. (1997). Designing Web-based instruction: a human-computer interaction perspective. In B. H. Khan (Ed.), Web-Based Instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

From: From: John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking (eds.), How people learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. http://books.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/ch6.html.

Ideas are best introduced when students see a need or a reason for their use--this helps them see relevant uses of knowledge to make sense of what they are learning. Problem situations used to engage students may include the historic reasons for the development of the domain, the relationship of that domain to other domains, or the uses of ideas in that domain.