Re: Problem Based Learning

Timothy Koschmann (tkoschmann who-is-at acm.org)
Thu, 27 May 1999 18:27:07 -0500

>It's when Problem-Based Learning goes to the K-12 level that a more
>restrictive meaning I think tends to take over. Students are given a
>"problem" by the teacher, which may or may not have a real-world
>similarity, and which may or may not have a pre-given "answer." The
>context is often quickly lost, and what might otherwise make the problem
>solving practice resemble problem solving practices in other
>communities-of-practice is lost in the transformation. So that's why the
>distiction here between Project- and Problem-based learning, to draw the
>distinction between something that has at its root joint construction of a
>product that's never been made before, that has an open-ended character,
>and that is connected to wider communities of practice.

I think that's right, Bill, but it's not necessarily a difference between
projects and problems, but how well the problems/cases/projects have been
designed. Medical schools have had 25 years to develop problems and
formats for presenting them and there is still lots of room for
improvement. Teachers who want to teach in this way in the K-12 world are
thrown on their own resources to develop problems for use in their
classrooms and that is a problem. Unlike the textbook industry that feeds
the traditional curriculum, there is no Prentice-Hall cranking out teaching
cases for K-12. I suppose in some ways that could also be viewed as a plus
since it gives teachers an opportunity to design for their own classrooms.

The social studies teacher in the note that Linda forwarded was asking a
legitimate question---where do you find materials to do this kind of stuff?
---Tim