> Thanks, that's helpful. I would say that PBL provides a framework
within
> which the faculty tutor/coach and the students participate in ways that
are
> negotiated as they go along. Skilled tutors frequently shift roles
> depending on their goals of the moment. Sometimes the students will ask
> them to directly provide information or they will do this on their own,
if,
> in their judgment it will serve to advance the discussion in some
important
> way. Also, the students can and do sometimes ask the tutor to "time out"
> from being a facilitator and serve as an on-the-spot resource person, if
> they know it is an issue that falls into the faculty member's area of
> expertise. So participation at any given time might be
student-initiated,
> teacher-initiated, or collaborative.
>
I guess a part of me finds it hard to believe. I would question what the
role the "track" has to do with the lack of prerequisites. Often certain
sub-programs (tracts) are successful specifically because it is sheltered
from socio-historical contraints. Education has *teach for america* and
other such programs that are intentionally sheltered from the contraints
that regular SOE programs have to deal with. Even with such sheltering
though the outcome tends to be the same. My concern with PBL is not that
it can't be as or more successful, but that it is.
We are on some level always creating a space for action and in the end, is
being transformed and transforming all that different. PBL on one level
exists because of its success which maybe that should be questioned. I
have just finished rereading Dicipline and Punishment by Foucault, so the
whole notion of having the individual take over the role of dicipliner
(read learner) is on my mind. I am not saying PBL does this, but in a
discussion of student transformation, interests etc. it should be an area
of critical concern. The old school which those conservatives so easily
forget was very inefficient which is why ED psych. is always talking about
the problem of transfer. In this sense is the talk of transformation,
ownership, identity etc. all that different with the goal of the
transmission view of knowledge. Is the only difference the student being
assimulated with a struggle or doing so willingly through identification,
ownership, love of learning ? I don't think it so much a yes/no question,
for me the question is about the dangers of naturalizing student's
transformation, identity, needs, motives as if they are some priori to
activity.
In early education we talk quite of bit of those naturalized needs,
interests etc, but when one stands back they are very political. How is a
preschool set up and whose ideology does it support? What issues does the
developmental ideology not permit us to discuss. Why are some families
developmentally approriate and others are not. Awhile ago teacher on a
newsgroup in reference to the war wondered if the war should be discussed
with children and mentioned the need for addressing it at the level of the
students interests etc. How is a child who only sees the world through a
sand table, blocks, and dolls and other measures of middleclass censorship
suppose to share their interests about race, justice, inequality suffering
etc. The poster then argued we need to send a message that they are safe
and this could not happen to them. Of course not, they are middleclass
american children and we should shelter them from the consequences of their
safety.
I guess my larger point being we can organize curriculum so children will
take responsibility for that transformation rather than having to beat it
into them, but is that an essential good. I don't think we can or should
escape such scenarials, education is about transformation, but I do think
naturalizing it as in sense the student took ownership in the transforation
can become very dangerous. I am also not deterministic as in interests
needs etc are totally socially determined, but rather how we naturalize
those interests, needs etc.is. As a cartoon I saw recently said, "do you
want us to be in your uncooperative work groups, or our cooperative
non-work groups".
What this has to do with calculus I am not sure.
Nate
> By the pre-requisites do you mean pre-matrication requirements such as
> organic chemistry, etc. that all students are expected to take in their
> pre-med program? There are no pre-requisites to the PBL track in medical
> school. Students are expected to pick up necessary basic science in the
> context of collaboratively working with problems.
> ----Tim
>
>