>(Tim wrote Mon, 24 May 1999) The model you describe of teaching in the
abstract and then >attempting to
>make concrete is exactly the thing that PBL sets out to turn on its head.
>The idea is that you start from an authentic problem (in all the senses
>developed in the recent discussion) and then assist the learners in
>discovering what they would need to know in order to tackle the problem.
Nevertheless, I don't see PBL as that unusual an instructional approach.
In our school, for example, the PBL type of project is used extensively in
the technology program. The one best example is the "bridge". Students
have to design and construct a bridge that can withstand certain stresses.
Along the way they have to learn a lot about design geometry, stress loads,
design drawing, and I don't know what all else (Our tech head lost me with
his jargon). They have several other projects of a similar nature: a
rocket design/construction project, a race car design/construction project,
several other smaller projects which demand the mastery of several
technical construction processes in order to complete the project (e.g. a
simple "desk caddy" which involves combining several construction methods).
The senior design class is tasked with the problem of designing real
solutions to real problems found within the school.
We can look at some earlier examples. In the communications department, it
has been a tradition in many of our schools that instructional programs
have been designed around the school yearbook and the school newspaper.
These classes learned how to put together a communications product/project
by actually creating and publishing something. Another example from an
earlier time (my callow youth): twenty five years ago, I participated in an
annual drama production project which saw all of the English classes in a
secondary school putting on a month-long theatre production which required
students to become familiar with, and master, a lot of theatrical
techniques from acting to stage design and lighting to costuming.=20
More recently, three years ago, our school also developed an entire
integrated first year curriculum program called "The Great Lakes Basin
Project" which saw many of the "different" curricular areas in the school
combining their approaches to develop open-ended projects around studies of
the Great Lakes system in Canada and the USA. The school won the Readers'
Digest Educational Award for this about three years ago (now sadly
discontinued due to the effects of the changes brought about by the current
Conservative govt.).
With the aid of these examples, I want to make two points. First of all, I
suspect that PBL is not really that uncommon if you look back through the
practices of secondary schools (Speaking only from my own experience in my
own province). However, I believe it has always been regarded by
knowledgeable teachers as simply another form of project work, but useful
for different ends. As our technical dept. head put it, in our school at
least, PBL is understood as a "problem solving" exercise where the stress
is on the process of "learning how to learn" and also "learning how to
integrate" various forms of knowing into creating the solution to a
problem, or the creation of a product (Hence an excellent technique for
exploring field problems in a medical program, or an educational program, I
should think). As one of our science teachers put it to me (and I agree
completely), the disadvantage to PBL is that it is not an efficient way to
learn and master the highly formal complex theoretical/procedural
"toolwork" of the disciplines. For that you need some form of more direct
instruction, be it nothing more than the traditional lecture possibly
combined with something more interesting like a problem project upon which
one can experiment with the framework (The kind I mentioned in my earlier
note).
The second point I want to make is that teachers' freedom to use these
contrasting inductive/deductive methods is frequently manipulated by the
political environment of the schools. For example, three governments ago
(late 80's), in Ontario, the Liberal government inadvertently started the
interest in the school yearbook and newspaper as communications projects by
simply requiring an extra "communications" course for graduation. Two
governments ago, the left-wing NDP government (early 90's) really pushed
the PBL approach, which resulted in the kinds of project work I mentioned
from our technical program, and which eventually resulted in "The Great
Lakes Basin Project". The current Conservative (right-wing) government has
presided over the death of "The Great Lakes Basin Project" because cutbacks
do not permit the enormous amount of time necessary to carry this work out
(and many of the teachers who developed the program have given up and/or
gone into retirement). I don't see a lot of room for further development
of the PBL methodology into the areas of mathematics, history, geography
and science under this current government. In fact, our geography people
told me today that this government has limited the "local geography study"
programs which provided such fertile opportunity for PBL projects. In my
own area (special education), I have had to curtail work on my adaptation
of PBL to the "strategic learning" component of my program because I am now
being forced to spend more time with administration than actual teaching as
a result of budget changes.
Finally, I want to express my personal believe that teachers eventually
learn to become very pragmatic practitioners because we do not have the
freedom to control the nature of the courses we teach and the methods we
use. We merely do the best we can while dodging the ordinance flying about
the chaotic political battlefield that education has become. I have the
strong impression that the academic research community often inadvertently
contributes to this ordinance flying about our ears by promoting
"favourite" methodologies, and falling occasional victim to the tendency to
over-generalize the potential of these methodologies. I believe that most
experienced teachers knowingly or intuitively adopt an eclectic awareness
that many of these methodologies are "middle range" methodologies useful
for certain purposes, and not others. And it is this awareness that makes
many teachers so frustratingly oblivious to the blandishments which promote
the methodologies which move in and out of academic fashion within the
university.
--glenn
Glenn D. Humphreys
glenhump who-is-at soonet.ca
P.O. Box 11,
Echo Bay, Ontario,
Canada, P0S 1C0
Home: (705) 248-1226
Office: (705 942-7423
Fax:=A0 (705) 248-1226 (Prearrange please)