Joseph Dal Molin wrote:
"Problem-based Learning: PBL is any learning environment in which the problem drives the learning. That is, before students learn some knowledge they are given a problem. The problem is posed so that the students discover that they need to learn some new knowledge before they can solve the problem."
"Suzie Jones had a sore throat. Her strep screen was positive. And she was treated with penicillin and developed a rash." I've had the privilege of participating with (I started to say "teaching") medical students in the problem based system as adopted from Mcmaster to Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. In Mercer's PBL six students, one practicing physician and a practicing PhD spent the morning around a table pondering a case description, usually a page or two long, detailing the course of some illness. Richard G. DAVIS wrote concerning teaching curiosity:
My approach has been to adopt the passive, permissive strategy that waits for the appearance of the curious minds, and then to create paths of least resistance for these special few.
Bingo, Richard. The cool thing about PBL is that it is naturally open-ended. The six students must work out for themselves where they go with Suzie Jones' sore throat. And the two faculty must lead in the most passive, permissive way possible. Now, medical students are HIGHLY motivated learners but always torn between the sheer joy of learning all this new stuff and the terror that something will be missed... So they tend to periodically beg/demand to be spoon fed just the essential, practical minimum that will make them <<doctors>>. On the faculty side there is the same sort of tension. Subject matter experts are inherently afraid that a student will not learn ALL of biochemistry, pharmacology, psychology, or whatever... So the "experts" are programed to stand up and launch a lecture. PBL is wonderful stuff, if you can stand uncertainty. If you can't you should not go into medicine... at least not into primary care medicine. [jlz] EVERYTHING is interesting... if one can <be interested>. ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=7637&alloc_id=16865&op=click _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
