A Practical Guide to Problem-Based Learning Online

Maggi Savin-Baden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134072415
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Problem-based learning online is a burgeoning area, crying out for support in all the disciplines, but particularly health, medicine, education and social care that are already advanced users of problem-based learning in higher education.

This book provides highly grounded research based ways for those wanting to change problem-based learning modules and programs from face to face to online approaches, as well as those who have developed e-learning components but who want to adopt problem-based methods.

Providing an overview of the current state of problem based learning online, it examines why we're moving from fact to face to online provision, considers existing forms of provision, outlines common mistakes and strategies to avoid future problems, and shows how to effectively facilitate learning.

Illustrated by mini case studies and examples of international projects, it provides guidance on effective design, online collaboration and group dynamics, and explores the common, and complex, decisions faced when choosing which form of problem-based learning to adopt.

Including practical information and resources for games and activities, scenarios of problem-based learning in the different disciplines, advice for supporting staff and students, and effectively evaluating the tools, skills and pedagogy needed for learning, this book is an essential guide for all practitioners involved in the design and delivery of problem based learning online.

Part 1
Deciding how to implement problem-based learning online

Chapter 1
Reasons for implementing problem-based learning online

Introduction

This chapter will examine the reasons why problem-based learning is being moved from a face-to-face mode of learning to a virtual form. It will present the relevant literature and examine the extent to which the pedagogies associated with both approaches complement each other or collide. It begins by presenting a few of the current face-to-face approaches available and suggesting ways of beginning to design a PBLonline module. It then explores the reasons why there is an increasing use of PBLonline and suggests issues that need to be considered in relation to implementation.

Although problem-based learning has been used for many years and in diverse ways, the use of it as an online teaching approach is relatively new. The reasons for using PBLonline are many and various, yet most people who have developed PBLonline have begun by using it face-to-face in the first instance. While it is possible to set up PBLonline from scratch, I would suggest that having some face-to-face experience beforehand is useful. This is because facilitating problem-based learning teams is markedly different from other forms of teaching and certainly differs significantly from the general types of moderation used in online environments. However, discussion about the relationship between facilitation and moderation is undertaken fully in Chapter 4.

Overview of problem-based learning

In the last decade problem-based learning has changed considerably. For a once relatively stable and clear approach to teaching, with a number of models and variations, which shared similar philosophies and perspectives, the current landscape is diverse, complex and contested. The result of such diversity is a landscape of both confusion and enthusiasm, which has resulted in overlapping concepts, terms, ideas and views about what once counted as problem-based learning. This first part of the chapter part begins by presenting some of the early models and approaches, but mainly focuses on the ones still in use today. The second section of this chapter explores more recent formulations of problem-based learning and discusses the relationship between problem-based learning and types of inquiry-based learning.

Problem-based learning was an approach popularized by Barrows and Tamblyn (1980) following their research into the reasoning abilities of medical students at McMaster Medical School in Canada. This was because they found that students could learn content and skill, but when faced with a patient could not apply their knowledge in the practical situation. Barrows and Tamblyn’s study and the approach adopted at McMaster marked a clear move away from problem-solving learning in which individual students answered a series of questions from information supplied by a lecturer. Rather, this new method they proposed involved learning in ways that used problem scenarios to encourage students to engage themselves in the learning process, a method that became known as problem-based learning. In this early version of problem-based learning certain key characteristics were essential (Box 1.1). Students in small teams¹ would explore a problem situation and through this exploration were expected to examine the gaps in their own knowledge and skills in order to decide what information they needed to acquire in order to resolve or manage the situation with which they were presented. Thus, early definitions of problem-based learning identify the classic model as one that has the characteristics shown in Box 1.1 (Barrows and Tamblyn, 1980).

Soon after McMaster began its problem-based learning curriculum two other new medical schools, at the University of Limburg at Maastricht in the Netherlands and at the University of Newcastle in Australia, adapted the McMaster model of problem-based learning and in so doing developed their own spheres of influence. The then University of Limburg, now Maastricht, began a new medical school in 1975, which saw problem-based learning as the primary strategy for the first four study years. The institution developed a new library consistent with the problem-based learning approach in 1992 (Ebenezer, 1993). The seven steps developed by them are still used in

Box 1.1 Characteristics of problem-based learning

• Complex, real world situations that have no one ‘right’ answer are the organizing focus for learning.

• Students work in teams to confront the problem, to identify learning gaps, and to develop viable solutions.

• Students gain new information though self-directed learning.

• Staff act as facilitators.

• Problems lead to the development of clinical problem-solving capabilities.

Box 1.2 Maastricht seven steps to problem-based learning

1 Clarify and agree working definitions, unclear terms and concepts.

2 Define the problem and agree which phenomena require explanation.

3 Analyse the problems (brainstorm).

4 Arrange explanations into a tentative solution.

5 Generate and prioritize learning objectives.

6 Research the objectives through private study.

7 Report back, synthesize explanations and apply new information to the original problems.

curricula worldwide, although more often in subjects such as medicine, psychology and health sciences rather than arts-based subjects (Box 1.2).

Problem-based learning also became popular in Australia, perhaps spurred on in part by the Karmel Report in 1973 that concluded that Australian medical school curricula were too science-oriented (Report on the Committee for Medical Schools, 1973).

There are a number of leading debates in the field of problem-based learning. One of these related to the extent to which a course, module or programme is deemed to be problem-based or not. To date there has been little in-depth discussion about the design of problem-based curricula. Instead the discussions have tended to centre on what counts as problem-based learning, ways of implementing it and types of problem-based learning (for example, Boud, 1985; Barrows, 1986). More recently Conway and Little (2000) have suggested that problem-based learning tends to be utilized as either an instructional strategy or as a curriculum design. Instructional strategy is where problem-based learning is largely seen as another teaching approach that can be mixed in with other approaches. Thus, it tends to be used within a subject or as a component of a programme or module, where other subjects may be delivered through lectures. In an integrated problem-based learning curriculum, there is a sense of problem-based learning being a philosophy of curriculum design that promotes an integrated approach to both curriculum design and learning. Here, students encounter one problem at a time and each problem drives the learning. A number of other discussions have emerged about types of problem-based learning, the most basic being that there are two types: the pure model and the hybrid model. The argument here is that either the whole curriculum is problem-based and is modelled on the McMaster version of problem-based learning, whereby students meet in small teams and do not receive lectures or tutorials, or it is the hybrid model, which is usually defined by the inclusion of fixed resource sessions such as lectures and tutorials which are designed to support students. Lectures may be timetabled in advance or may be requested by the students at various points in the module or programme. The so-called pure model is also often termed the Medical School Model, and is invariably defined as necessarily having a dedicated facilitator for small teams of students, being student centred and being seen to be a good choice for highly motivated, experienced learners in small cohorts (see for example, Duch et al., 2001). The difficulty with this notion of there only being two types: a pure model and a hybrid model, is that in reality given the current number of forms of problem-based learning in existence, most models would be classed as being hybrid. I would therefore suggest that:

Problem-based learning is thus an approach to learning that is characterized by flexibility and diversity in the sense that it can be implemented in a variety of ways in and across different subjects and disciplines in diverse contexts. As such it can therefore look very different to different people at different moments in time depending on the staff and students involved in the programmes utilizing it. However, what will be similar will be the focus of learning around problem scenarios rather than discrete subjects.

(Savin-Baden, 2000: 3)

One of the other main debates centres around the relationship between problem-based learning and other forms of learning. It is possible, in many conventional curricula, to add on project-based learning, games, simulations and work-based learning in a whole variety of ways. However, bolting on problem-based learning is usually quite difficult because of the need for inquiry and student-centred practices to be central to the whole learning approach.

The values implicit in problem-based learning

One of the central issues about problem-based learning as an a...

Table of contents

• Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part 1 Deciding how to implement problem-based learning online
• Part 2 Designing problem-based learning online environments
• Part 3 Resources
• Glossary
• References
• Index