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Problem-Based Learning

"Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a curriculum development and delivery system that recognizes the need to develop problem solving skills as well as the necessity of helping students to acquire necessary knowledge and skills. Indeed, the first application of PBL was in medical schools which rigorously test the knowledge base of graduates. PBL utilizes real world problems, not hypothetical case studies with neat, convergent outcomes. It is in the process of struggling with actual problems that students learn both content and critical thinking skills.

Problem-based learning thus has several distinct characteristics which may be identified and utilized in designing such curriculum. These are:

1. Reliance on problems to drive the curriculum - the problems do not test skills; they assist in development of the skills themselves.
2. The problems are truly ill-structured - there is not meant to be one solution, and as new information is gathered in a reiterative process, perception of the problem, and thus the solution, changes.
3. Students solve the problems - teachers are coaches and facilitators.
4. Students are only given guidelines for how to approach problems - there is no one formula for student approaches to the problem.
5. Authentic, performance based assessment - is a seamless part and end of the instruction."

Source: Retrieved on 18 Mar 2004, from SCORE, "Problem Based Learning" http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=socratic (pop-up)

Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon, an educational scholar, identified the following pedagogical aims of the Socratic method:

1. bring interlocutors to aporia [self-doubt];
2. pursue truth about fundamental questions;
3. teach proper intellectual habits;
4. modify the moral principles of the interlocutors.

Source: Retrieved on 18 Mar 2004, from Education Policy Analysis Archives, "The Use and Abuse of Socrates in Present Day Teaching." http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/problearn.html (pop-up)

Problem-Based Learning can range from part of a class meeting to teach a specific concept to an entire course based on solving a specific problem, step by step.

Note: PBL also stands for Problem-Based Learning