Re: the calculus wars
Timothy Koschmann (tkoschmann who-is-at acm.org)
Wed, 26 May 1999 15:03:04 -0500
Nate wrote:
>In returning to PBL its congruent with conceptual physics with the what the
>students know part, but its what happens after that is what I see as
>different. I sense a level of decentering of the teacher or lets find
>knowledge anywhere but the teacher. I have no problem with the more funds
>of knowledge approach, but we can't forget that the teacher him/herself is
>one of those funds and often trained specifically in many of those issues.
>I think an important way a teacher can do this is by offering frameworks,
>theoretical models, scientific concepts to view those everyday problems.
>In this sense, my problem with PBL is not with what it emphasizes but with
>what it doesn't.
Your perception of the PBL tutor/coach's role is accurate to the extent
that faculty members when in this role are discouraged from telling what
they know, but you should realize that there are multiple faculty roles in
PBL. Once students have formulated a "learning issue" (i.e., recognized
that there is something that they need to know), they are encouraged to
utilize faculty as resources along with reference works, journals, the
Internet, and anything else they can think of. Tutor/coaches do facilitate
inquiry and do model appropriate strategies for problem solving, but an
important part of the method is that at no point does the tutor/coach tell
the students "This is something that you need to learn."
---Tim