Unit 3: Facilitating Problem Based Learning
Unit Objectives
After completing this unit the learner will be able to:
- Define the role of a teacher within a PBL task.
- Describe how teachers can help students focus their investigations in a more constructive manner.
- Recognize teacher hesitancy behind implementing PBL into the classroom and justifies its usefulness.
Problem Based Learning in Action
As you watch the video observe how the teacher and students interact. How is the teacher facilitating the PBL? How does she guide the students as they attempt to define an investigating question?
Record your observations and reflections in your journal as the video progresses from:
- introduction of the crickets
- formulation of a hypothesis and data to be collected
- procedural development
- experimental design and type of data collection
- student reactions
Right click on the following link to open a new window. If you left click on the link you will need to use your back browser to return to this page. The video is 54:26 in length
Let the Students Go
One of the largest obstacles teacher's encounter using a PBL task is allowing students to be in control. The loss of control leads to anxiety and teachers often revert back to direct instruction models of lecturing, book work, and worksheet because it is familiar. Remember in the video that the teacher focused the students learning by scaffolding the process of the PBL so students could work with a more manageable mini-task for the class period.
The students are no longer operating under the same procedures. Watch the video about inquiry-based learning and classroom control. Teachers in the video give a brief interpretation of how classroom control changes when PBL tasks are implemented.
Right click on the following link to open a new window. If you left click on the link you will need to use your back browser to return to this page.
Teachers and Problem Solving
During the process of PBL the role of the teacher can vary from "director to shepherd, but when the teacher is a co-learner rather than a taskmaster, learners become experts" (Egbert, 2009, p. 163). Your role in PBL tasks are to facilitate thinking skills and the problem-solving mechanism. In order for this to be accomplished teachers need to be equipped to "facilitate investigations and conversations that help students to analyze instead of recall, to justify instead of define, and to formulate instead of list" as Marshall and Horton (2011, p. 94) state. By providing students hints and resources at a gradual pace they can help emphasize the process as well as the content.
Focusing on the merit of guiding questions and student research plans helps provide opportunities for students to reflect and examine their recommendations. Often times you may be asked to become involved in group dynamics as the mediator, keeping students on task and making sure each student is participating equally.
PBL provides and opportunity for students to develop team sills. As a facilitator you can ensure that students understand how they contribute to and support their group. You can express the importance of their role as an actively contributing group member who learns from and accepts help from others as well as accepts constructive criticism. PBL must also take place in a classroom environment where students feel safe to express their ideas to teach and help others within their group by provide constructive criticism. Eventually they will begin to see the importance of taking responsibility for tasks required in the group's ongoing work.
Consider the Following
The teacher must consider the following strategies when implementing a PBL task.
- Help students become aware of each phase of the process. All scientific study involves a design phase, an investigation phase, and a period devoted to constructing meaning from the data that has been collected.
- Be aware of and correctly interpret student behaviors and comments.
- Establish, enforce, and model high standards for work, communication, and behavior.
- Help students learn to collaborate to solve problems.
- Monitor your responses. If you give too many hints, provide too many answers, or ask too many leading questions during a PBL exercise, student interest is stifled.
Reflection: In your journal look back to your notes on the video Investigating Crickets. Did the teacher engage in any of these strategies? If so, which ones. Do not hesitate to return to the video to further your understanding the role of the teacher in PBL.
Personal Testimony
Before Reading: In your journal reflect on the your own reservations, motivations and personal experience about PBL (Inquiry).
During Reading:As you read Steve's Story about his road to implementing PBL (Inquiry) in the classroom ask yourself if you share his ideas. Right click on the following link to open a new window. If you left click on the link you will need to use your back browser to return to this page. Steve's Story
After Reading: Initially Steve perceived his teaching as successful and his role as a science teacher was to help students become familiar and make sense of science concepts, but suspected that his students were not engaged and retaining information on a regular basis. Steve's reflections point out many obstacles teachers face as they reorient their teaching toward PBL. In your journal record any lingering reservations you have about PBL. Has this mini-course addressed these continued reservations in any way?
Characteristics of Effective Problem-Based Learning Tasks
"Meaningful inquiry investigations bring students to a point of deep understanding regarding a key concept in the discipline" (Marshall & Horton, 2011, p. 94)PBL tasks involve learners in gaining and organizing knowledge content. As stated earlier PBL tasks help learners link school activities to life, providing the "why" for doing the activity. They give students control of their learning and provide that spark of fun and interest necessary to maintain student motivation. It is not surprising that effective PBL tasks can lead to additional content learning and should be seen as central to a course curriculum and not as peripheral or time fillers. Typically PBL tasks have a measurable outcome, that may not be necessarily correct.
Effective Problem-Based Learning
Through the use of effective PBL strategies students begin to answer guiding questions that allow them to assess what they know, what they need to know, and what they should do to solve the problem. According to Egbert (2009) the student problem-solving process involves four steps: define and frame the problem, plan, inquire, and look back.
1. Teachers must present students the problem statement. In this step you will DEFINE & FRAME THE PROBLEM as you introduce a real world scenario to students. It is extremely important that the students should not have enough prior knowledge to solve the problem. This simply means they will have to gather necessary information or learn new concepts, principles, or skills as they engage in the problem-solving process.
2. Allow students ample time the PLAN. Assist students as they develop a plan on how to address the problem guiding them to list what is known. This may include data from the situation as well as information based on prior knowledge.
3. Presented with a problem, students will need to find information to fill in missing gaps and INQUIRE. As the facilitator you can ask questions that will assist their learning in a
favorable direction and help students reduce cognitive overload as they begin their research. Making sure students do not lose focus early on due to an overwhelming amount of information is critical as a facilitator of PBL. Generating specific objectives for students to meet along the way to a larger goal will greatly assist in the scaffolding of content. Eventually as students inquire they will generate their own questions that will guide their searches that may take place on-line, in the library, or even at home.
4. Teachers must provide an opportunity for students to LOOK BACK and evaluate their conclusions where they will eventually communicate, orally and/or in writing their possible actions, recommendations, and solutions. The final product should include the scenario, guiding questions, data gathered, analysis of data, and support for solutions or recommendations based on the data analysis.
Resources
Darling-Hammond, L. et al. (2008). Powerful Learning: What We Know About Teaching for Understanding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: Essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Thier, H.D. (2000). Developing Inquiry-Based Science Materials: A Guide for Educators. New York: Teachers College Press, Columbia University.Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning
Unit 1: What is Problem Based Learning?
Unit 2: Applying Problem Based Learning to the Science Classroom using the Scientific Method
My Biography April Taylor
Design Project Start Incorporating Problem Based Learning Using the Scientific Method
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