Problem-based Learning in Higher Education: Untold Stories
Maggi Savin-Badenara Sage (2000)

Prologue

It is Monday morning, 8.45, and the door of the design studio bursts open. Tim and Bill rush over to Jack to tell him that they have cracked the problem scenario. The group has been working on the problem all weekend but struggled, until now, to figure it out. The two who have found a way of managing the problem scenario share their views with the others. The group is oblivious to the tutor until he comes over to tell them that they have got the wrong answer. They are defeated, deflated and distraught that they have worked so hard for no result. Tim remains unconvinced that they are wrong and while the tutor gives the class a mini lecture he sits and works it all out again. At the end of the session, the group argues with the tutor who discovers, through this group, that there are in fact several ways to solve this particular problem.

One of the difficulties today is in writing a book that reflects the complexity of its subject. The students in the scenario above demonstrate some of the challenges for staff and students involved with programmes that use problem-based learning. For example, part of the challenge for the students here was in being prepared to contest the solution proffered by the tutor; to value their own perspectives and their own voices enough in the learning process to argue their case. Being able to do this is something that many students who have previously experienced lecture-based methods of learning at school or at college will find complex and difficult. This is because problem-based learning demands of them a sound understanding of the knowledge they have researched and explored, and an ability to critique information. At the same time they are also expected to take up a position towards the problem situation with which they have been presented in relation both to their prior experience and the new knowledge they have gained. Problem-based learning can offer students opportunities to engage with complexity, and help them both to see ambiguity and learn to manage the ambiguities that prevail in professional life. It can also help students to integrate learning across subjects and disciplines and to take up a position towards the knowledge on offer. For staff, the challenges of using problem-based learning are equally complex in that they relate not only to issues of 2 Problem-based Learning in Higher Education: Untold Stories teaching and learning; but also to the personal challenges that emerge as students question their perspectives and prior experience.

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