Re: Problem Based Learning

Bill Penuel (bpenuel who-is-at unix.sri.com)
Thu, 27 May 1999 15:13:07 -0700

I agree with you, Tim, on your points about PBL in medicine. In medical
education--where Problem-Based Learning has been most widely used, it looks
a lot like Project-Based Learning of the type I described in my earlier
post. Your presentation of medical students' difficulties with this new
form of learning is certainly testimony to the fact that they perceive
these to be fundamentally different.

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.

Bill
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Penuel, PhD
Research Social Scientist
Center for Technology in Learning
SRI International
333 Ravenswood Avenue, Mailstop BS116
Menlo Park, CA 94025
tel: 650-859-5001
fax: 650-859-4605

Check out our websites at:

http://www.sri.com/policy/ctl

http://www.cilt.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------