The question 'What is your opinion and experiences in Problem-Based Learning?' has been asked on ResearchGate to scholarly peers. The elaborate response by Ms Rajaa Fahad Allhiani at King Abdulaziz University has been elevated to popular answer. She, among others, answered:
- Problem-based learning (PBL) is an approach that challenges students to learn through engagement in a real problem.
- Problem-based learning is student-centered. PBL makes a fundamental shift--from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning.
- Learning takes place within authentic contexts.
- In a PBL course, students and the instructor become colearners, coplanners, coproducers, and coevaluators.
- The PBL approach is grounded in solid academic research on learning and on the best practices that promote it.
- PBL is unique in that it fosters collaboration among students, stresses the development of problem solving skills within the context of professional practice, promotes effective reasoning and self-directed learning, and is aimed at increasing motivation for life-long learning.
- PBL originated from a curriculum reform.
- Traditional education practices, starting from kindergarten through college, tend to produce students who are often disenchanted and bored with their education.
- Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of PBL is that students genuinely enjoy the process of learning.
- A PBL course is designed into a series of real-world, hands-on, PBL investigations.
She states that the problem-solving process can be summarized according to three broad and reiterative phases.
- "What do we already know?" In this phase, you will entertain the problem in light of the knowledge that you already have from your own experience.
- "What do we need to know (to solve this problem)?" Here you will list questions or learning issues that must be answered to address missing knowledge, or to shed light on the problem.
- In this phase your group will discuss, evaluate, and organize hypotheses and tentative hypotheses. "What should we do?"
Visit the ResearchGate page for more information and other responses/answers.