"I must Create a System, or be enslaved by another Man's."
--William Blake
Not only does this quote sum up my philosophy towards life in general, but it sums up the philosophy behind problem-based learning, or PBL. In PBL, students are asked to create their own meaning when faced with a problem or dilemma, do their own independent research, collaborate to find a solution, and then carry out their solutions and report their findings.
In other words, students are in charge of their own learning and making meaning, guided and supported by the teacher, whose role is to give feedback and supply pertinent resources. Looks crazy, I bet, to those who feel a teacher should control and micromanage every aspect of a student's learning. But I can't blame them for thinking it's nuts, this giving students power of their own learning. I mean, how often have we been implored to "make things clear" for students? Unfortunately, because we hear this so often, sometimes we teachers accidentally make it too clear, so that the students are only going through the motions of learning.
I fell into this trap. I felt that I wasn't doing right by students if I wasn't making it easy for them, handing them everything they would need to know and do on a silver learning platter. I was guilt-ridden if students didn't learn everything I had planned for them to learn, because I thought I had done a poor job of giving them everything they needed to be successful. And I tried to plan for everything, to smooth out the bumps along their path to learning.
What I didn't realize at the time was that learning involves bumps. It involves mental jostling, careening, tumbling, and falling down that sometimes results in scrapes and bruises (that easily heal, and from which learning takes place). Students need to experience all of these things while learning, all the while being given guidance & feedback by the teacher. What I had been doing was inadvertently teaching them how NOT to think by planning out a pre-determined path to thinking.
PBL doesn't corral students down a prescribed path to learn concepts. It presents students with a messy, ill-structured challenge, gives them a few pieces of the puzzle to solve it, and then lets students determine how to solve the problem. In essence, it throws them into the ocean before learning how to swim--but gives them some floaties to help them out while they're learning. You, as the instructor, are the lifeguard on duty, there to observe, shout out suggestions through your bullhorn (not really, but some days I wish I had a bullhorn), wander around the beach making sure everything is on the up-and-up, and, only when necessary, jump in to save them. But you don't keep them on the beach; you give them some different floaties, and throw them back in the water.
But the best thing about PBL is that, each time you throw them into the "learning ocean," they get better and better at swimming through the content, figuring it out, and putting the pieces together. This is what, to me, makes PBL one huge vehicle for teaching students metacognition.
And that's why I decided to give it a shot in my classroom this year. If you've read any of my other posts, you'll know that our students come to our one building high school district well-trained on being vessels to be filled with knowledge, so I knew I had to start small; not with a full-blown problem, but with a prediction instead. I also knew that, because I had spent most of the year teaching students how to read and think, I had 3 units to teach (Mendelian Genetics, Molecular Genetics, & Evolution) and only 2 weeks in which to do it. Further, I knew I had to throw out all of the "nice to knows" and focus on the "need to knows," or the essentials. What better way, I reasoned, to teach my students the essentials, than through a PBL unit? And, what better way to get them to make meaningful connections between all three of these units rather than just memorizing information they will quickly forget? So, I dug up a science fiction story from this book, organized some vocabulary words and an article from Scientific American, and got started. (To see my learning plan for this unit, please click here.)
After the first week of this unit, I am absolutely convinced of the value of PBL. Using science fiction as an entry event ("The Anatomy Lesson" by Scott Sanders) is a good choice; my students couldn't stop talking about the story, and have maintained focus on it throughout the project. The key here is to pick a short one, and an engaging one. Also, through their independent research and developing an answer to the question in concept map format, they are truly doing their own learning, putting the content "puzzle pieces" together to predict an outcome about our human evolutionary future. They are amazing me with how much they have learned about genetics, DNA, and evolution, and amazing me with the fact that no lecture I have ever prepared on those topics has ever sparked this much thought. They are encountering the bumps in the road. They are learning how to get over them, or around them.
Are there bumps in the road for me as an instructor? Absolutely. I still have to resist the urge to tell them the answers, to do too much of the learning for them. I still struggle getting students to do research outside of class. I have some that are holding on to years of training that group work time is really social hour. I have my passive-aggressive students who, if I had a standard for pseudoworking, would score a 4. PBL doesn't erase any management issues you may have; in fact, it creates a greater need for good classroom management. However, because it requires you to be up and monitoring your students' learning at all times, you can also monitor any behavior that needs changing as well.
PBL is not a panacea for all the ills of education; just like anything else, PBL has its benefits and drawbacks. But it is a step in the right direction. It engages students, calling for active learning, and won't allow them to reside at their lowest potential energy in their seats. Despite these benefits, some may say that PBL isn't for them, that it's not realistic for their students. Then fine--don't try it. But the only obvious conclusion that this science teacher can make from observing what's happening in her classroom is that it is working for my students; it's the unbalanced force needed to set my students in motion on their bumpy learning path.