I think that Problem Based Learning can be very beneficial. It appears that it is most beneficial in professional and secondary education, however it is being widely used in K-12 education. It provides a social interactive experience, which in turn can result in a rich learning experience like no other. It encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning and adjust the learning to fit their own learning styles. This year our school district adopted a new math curriculum, called CMP. It is based on the foundation of project based learning. Students are placed in groups, assigned roles, and given real-world open ended problems to solve. A vast amount of our students have struggled with this curriculum. They have struggled with their refined roles as group members, struggled with collaboration, and many do not have the higher order thinking skills to solve these "open-ended" problems. They cannot grasp the concept that there is more than one "correct" way to solve the problem. They are so conditioned to receiving explict and direct instruction that they have had a difficult time coping.
Other barriers mentioned in the readings this week include having to focus too much on "teaching to the test", roles need to be clearly defined when working in groups, the Teacher needs to be a strong facilitator as opposed to just a transmitter of information/learning, and the Facilitator needs to be strong to empower and encourage students to work together collaboratively. I think as Hung's article points out, PBL promotes good problem solving skills and if the barriers can be overcome, PBL fosters better retention of knowledge overa longer period of time. Also, students are more likely to become self-directed learners. We are taught the importance of connecting text to real-world situtaions, so PBL definitely applies. I think that it is important that the Facilitator explain things in the ways that students can easily grasp. This could serve as one way to modify and adjust based on the learning needs of the students. As discussed in Ryan and Koschman's articles, I think that technology can strengthen PBL. In an effort to align PBL with web-based instruction, some tools that can be used could include Digoo, GoogleDocs, Writeboard, Wikis, Blogs, and Elluminate. Any of these tools can be used to collaborate in an on-line environment.
Your observations about how the kids struggle with the group work makes me realize that no model is best for everyone. It would be nice to let the kids choose - almost like having centers in the classroom - and one of the centers could be direct instruction.
ReplyDeleteGroup work is hard and takes a lot of energy from the learner.
You bring up some interesting points on barriers. It is interesting how PBL trades content breadth for content depth. PBL takes time for the students to dig and research topic information. Does this place them at a disadvantage on standardized tests that focus on breadth of content knowledge, not depth?
ReplyDeleteDonia,
ReplyDeleteDo students have a problem with the fact that the questions are open-ended? I would think a lot of students would be frustrated because they want the "right" answer.
Donia -
ReplyDeleteI think creating life long learners and self directed learners is a good thing but all of these discussions makes me think that if we are not giving students the skills and support to be this then we have not helped them at all. I think about how best to assess learning using this model. I am not a fan of teaching to the test or EOG's but I do think we need to make sure that students are learning what they need to learn. As someone pointed out this week, PBL might result in vary different learning, group to group, class to class, and year to year. If this is the case, then developing appropriate assessment strategies will be a further hurdle we must overcome!