Problem-based Learning

Problem-based Learning (PBL), its diluted sibling Enquiry-based Learning (EBL), and its grown-up cousin Action Learning, are more examples of “branding” forms of teaching which have been good standard practice for centuries. It is reasonable to claim that every effective teacher uses PBL at some stage or other in her or his teaching.

But PBL is not just another method of teaching. It can be used in a "weak" or a "strong" form: if you go for the strong form, it requires a whole different approach to curriculum and course design, crossing disciplinary boundaries, and tolerating a degree of uncertainty about outcomes. The weak form, on the other hand, can be incorporated within existing structures with rather less disruption.

1  Weakest form

This does not really count, but it is a starting point. We are all familiar with arithmetical "problems" from our school-days. Here a basic sum was cast in a very simplified real-world scenario, and the "added value" was simply in application and the ability to discern the nature of the sum:

All the required information is supplied, the problem is self-contained, but it does relate simple formal arithmetical processes to the real world, and require that at least two sums be linked.

2  Weak form

Now we start to refer to parameters or other information which is strictly outside the initial problem formulation:

This is where the project element comes in, although at this stage it may well just be a matter of selecting relevant information from that supplied (not a trivial task — not all the information will be relevant) and plugging it in to an equation. These weak forms are referred to by Savin-Baden as "Problem-solving learning".

3  Stronger form

Problem-based learning begins to come into its own when it involves finding out additional information to solve the problem (or case), with a greater or lesser degree of guidance. You not only have to work out what you need to know in order to solve the problem, you have to research it, and to apply your findings to the issue.

Now we are bringing in geographical and geological, legal, technical, economic, business and project management material, which has to be researched and integrated into the solution(s) to the problem. The task is probably too big for one person, so it will have to be undertaken by a group, who will therefore also have to develop skills in sharing out tasks, communicating findings, harnessing talents and compensating for weaknesses, and so on. Nevertheless, something slightly less ambitious (such exercises can be tailored by the amount of information provided) could simply be a culminating assessment for a third-level module.

4  The Real Thing

The progression so far has been apparently from simplicity to complexity and difficulty — but that is not what PBL is about. The question of whether it is “really” PBL is “How much of the burden of the curriculum does the problem bear?”

If, for example, the task above were the final integrated task for a course which had contained units on:

— it might be a pretty good assessment (might be — I'm totally out of my field and speculating wildly, and wishing I had never started with the ditch-digging example. Contact me and put me right!) but it would not be a PBL curriculum.

PBL really comes into its own when the case-study or the problem is the curriculum, when it provides the framework within which all the other learning is to be located. This is when it gets radical, because the conventional subject disciplines are subordinated to the Problem: and the task of curriculum development becomes one of finding a series of Problems which between them require the acquisition of all the knowledge, skills and values of the profession. What is more, the conventional disciplinary allegiances of teachers are subordinated to servicing the students' task of solving the problem.

The Challenge

Problem-based Learning is very good at getting students to learn whatever it focuses on. Moreover, they learn it in context, as a contributory discipline to the solution of the problem. But:

• they may pick things up piecemeal, without the disciplinary (as opposed to problem) context. It depends on the discipline: if it is a sequential or serial discipline which presupposes knowledge of prior steps or stages in order to make it work at this level — maths is a good example — it works well. But if it is a discipline where “A little learning is a dangerous thing,” (Pope), such as law, it could be dodgy.    
• The mapping exercise, to ensure that everything has been covered, is both essential and difficult.   
• Fitting a fully PBL curriculum into the formal requirements of an academically-validated course is hard.   
• It requires a committed team of staff who are not too proprietorial about their own disciplines. 
• It is not always possible to predict just what the outcomes will be: it may be possible to specify certain minimum outcomes, but if the problem or project has a number of possible solutions (and it is hard to devise meaningful and realistic ones which do not), students will end up picking up a lot of stuff which may not strictly be relevant. At one level this is desirable, but at another it is taking up study time which might conceivably be more profitably focused. 
• So the design of the problem / project has to be thought through very carefully, and preferably piloted, monitored and tested to destruction.

The Product

If the ensuing project gets to exist in the real world, so much the better — it greatly improves motivation and commitment and further enhances learning. Examples might be:

• Entry in an internal or external competition. (Competition is a two-edged sword — use it judiciously) 
• A presentation event, such as an exhibition, a performance, a conference or even a web-site 
• An excursion or vacation.

Risk factors and budget will need to be taken into account, of course.

... and the Process

For some teachers/facilitators, problem-based learning is just another tool in the box: for others, as Savin-Baden suggests, it is much more radical than that. It presents students with challenges about their own resourcefulness, personal organisation, critical abilities and capacity to think which appear in her account to be even more important than the content of what they learn. It induces a degree of “disjunction” (Jarvis, 1987), not unlike the de-stabilisation referred to on this site. 

Whether or not you accept this position (and the implication that such personal development is potentially an emergent property of PBL whether intended or not) will depend in part on where you stand on:

• Transformative learning
• Resistance to learning
• Cultural considerations
• The Subject Teacher Learner model

It could be said to be an attempt to introduce

• Situated learning

into the taught curriculum.

Is PBL just playing at it, and Action Learning the real thing?

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See

BOUD D and FELETTI G (1997) The Challenge of Problem-Based Learning London; Kogan Page (0-7494-2560-1)

SAVIN-BADEN M (2000) Problem-based Learning in Higher Education; untold stories Buckingham; Open University Press/SRHE (0-335-20337-X) [Back]

 Buy one, get one free [Back]