Preamble:
Other than the rapid PBL in session 1, the course is not based on PBL units. PBL is included here in the syllabus primarily to allow time for you to formulate an initial "learning/engaging" project that allows you to adopt or adapt the themes and activities from each subsequent session. However, there are benefits in looking at pedagogy at this early point:
  1. The elements of PBL and other approaches to teaching overlap, thus providing a basis for compare and contrast how the elements are put together. (Session 6 uses historical case-based learning and the course as a whole makes use of critical thinking themes, in which ideas and practices are illuminated by placing them in tension with alternatives.)
  2. PBL is played out in relation to a number of tensions, which can also be read a critical thinking themes for illuminating other forms of teaching as well as a student's own view about how they learn. That is to say, thinking about approaches to teaching (even if you are not a teacher [yet]) is also a way to think about how to make the most of learning opportunities.
This said, if this chapter were to be included in the book, it would probably be as an interlude, perhaps after session 6.


1. Introduction
Project- or problem-Based Learning (PBL) is an approach to education in which participants address a scenario by shaping their own directions of inquiry and developing their skills as investigators, trading a systematic encounter with knowledge that others have established for the possibility of re-engagement with oneself as an avid learner and inquirer.
1a. Mini-lecture: Rapid PBL

2. Reading
Part A

PBL: Project- or problem-Based Learning


PBL involves the interaction of the following elements played out in relation to a number of tensions.
Elements:
  1. Scenario (or case) raising problems (or issues) that often are not well defined, which invites the
  2. Students (or participants) who bring their diverse interests, backgrounds, experiences, and capabilities into play as they formulate and pursue
  3. Inquiries, which typically open out wide at first and evolve in unexpected directions, before the student focuses in to generate works in progress (or prototypes) on their way to a coherent
  4. Product (e.g., report) that is shared with other students and perhaps more widely, and from which other students learn. The inquiries are aided by the
  5. Instructor-coach, who composes the scenario, coaches the students through the opening-out and focusing-in process, introduces Tools, points to Resources, elicits dialogue and reflection on the Experiences, and emphasizes learning interactions over grading.
  6. Tools and processes to help students organize inquiries or to foster support and engagement among the students.
  7. Resources, such as contacts, materials, and reading suggestions drawn from the instructor's own work and life and from previous students' projects. (The internet makes it easier to explore strands of inquiry beyond any well-packaged sequence of canonical readings, to make rapid connections with experts and other informants, and to develop evolving archives of materials and resources that can be built on by future classes and others).
  8. Experiences, it is hoped, include engagement in self-directed inquiry, seeing how much can be learned in a short time using the PBL structure (where learning is not only about the problems raised by the scenario but also about oneself as an inquirer), and moving through initial discomfort to re-engagement with oneself as an avid learner. What makes this re-engagement possible is a combination of:
    • the tools and processes used for inquiry, dialogue, reflection, and collaboration;
    • the connections made among the different participants who bring diverse interests, skills, knowledge, experience, and aspirations to the PBL; and
    • the contributions to the topic laid out in the scenario on which the PBL is based.

PBLcycle.JPG

Tensions:

Examples:

Resources and References:
Anon. (n.d.) Untitled. http://condor.admin.ccny.cuny.edu/~jt7387/edpaper.doc (viewed 8 Sept. 12)
Greenwald, N. (2000). "Learning from Problems." The Science Teacher 67(April): 28-32.
Taylor, P. J. (2001). http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/journey.html#challenges (viewed 20 August 2014)
Prepared by Peter Taylor. Last update 28 August 2014.


Part B
Read two PBL cases that had their origins in the same real-life mix up at an IV Fertilization clinic.
Make note of a) how the cases match or diverge from the ideas in the reading above; and b) the differences in presentation, sequencing, and instructions and of how you, as a student, might undertake the PBL in each case.
In class we will discuss what you have noted in both areas.
Note: We aren't doing either embryo mix-up PBL in class; we're using the contrast to think about PBL. Therefore, you do not have to do any of the instructions for the PBL cases.

3. Activity
Compare two versions of the embryo mix up scenario and instructions, in light of how better to introduce a student to PBL.

4. Synthesis and extensions
TBA

5. Connections and resources
On the basis of discussion in class about PBL (project- or problem-based learning); reading of Greenwald (2000); and any other accounts you find of the philosophy and practice of PBL
5b. add to this blog post to make contributions to the revision of this chapter, including an expansion of the Resources section of the PBL Guided Tour (#2) or the Synthesis section (#4) to include annotated collection of new readings and other resources related to PBL.
5c. Adaptation of themes from the chapter to students' own projects of engaging an audience in learning or critical thinking about biology in its social context -- you might include this with your initial learning/engaging project description.
Suggestions: Consider the audience that you want to engage in learning or critical thinking. If they are not your students and you won't be running a PBL for them, think nevertheless about ways to engage them so they "bring their diverse interests, backgrounds, experiences, and capabilities into play."-->