3 ms·
I have had some classes that employed a similar method, it works in some cases (small class size, professor and students are very familiar/good rapport) but in
by swanson 16y ago
I have had some classes that employed a similar method, it works in some cases (small class size, professor and students are very familiar/good rapport) but in general this is how it would go in my experience:
- Students group up for 5-10min to work together, everyone sits there and waits for the one person who knows the solution to solve it
- Prof asks for a group to come up, no groups volunteer so he starts picking at random
- Students that don't know the answers will stop showing up for lecture or will cling to the people that do, so they don't learn the material
Like I said, there are cases when it can work -- and when it does it makes for a really good lecture. But I find it is increasing rare that students are willing to go up to the professor and in front of their classmates and work through their mistakes; you are very exposed and I think the fear of public failure can be overwhelming.
- carlygeehr 16y agoPBL can be very powerful in the right setting, but as you point out, it really boils down to student/professor rapport. In the best case, PBL is a fantastic learning tool, but in the worst case, as you say, it can be incredibly divisive.
- pjscott 16y agoWhat is PBL? I'm guessing "problem-based learning"?
- carlygeehr 16y agoyes, sorry - i spent the better part of a year studying that in depth and got rather used to using the acronym :)
- gcheong 16y agoOne way to approach this is for the teacher to model getting to an eventual solution including mistakes and false starts. This gets the students comfortable with the idea that they don't have to know everything when starting or having to present a perfect solution and that the real learning comes with some struggle to get to the solution.