PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING AND COOPERATIVE LEARNING

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centred instructional strategy in which students collaboratively solve problems and reflect on their experiences. It was pioneered and used extensively at McMaster University Canada. PBL is based on the educational theories of Vygotsky, Dewey, and others, and is related to socialcultural and constructivist theories of learning and instructional design. Characteristics of PBL are; 1. Learning is driven by challenging, open-ended, ill-defined and ill-structured problems. 2. Students generally work in collaborative groups. 3. Teachers take on the role as "facilitators" of learning. In PBL, students are encouraged to take responsibility for their group and organize and direct the learning process with support from a tutor or instructor. Advocates of PBL claim it can be used to enhance content knowledge and foster the development of communication, problem-solving, and self-directed learning skill. PBL positions students in simulated real-world working and professional contexts which involve policy, process, and ethical problems that will need to be understood and resolved to some outcome. By working through a combination of learning strategies to discover the nature of a problem, understanding the constraints and options to its resolution, defining the input variables, and understanding the viewpoints involved, students learn to negotiate the complex sociological nature of the problem and how competing resolutions may inform decision-making. Support systems, which include resources germane to the problem domain as well as instructional staff, are provided to scaffold students’ skills "just in time" and within their learning comfort zone (Vygotsky's Zone of Proximity)