Problem-based learning

Problem-based learning, or PBL for short, is an educational approach that’s collaborative and built around solving a complex real-life “problem” or scenario that you might come across in a professional setting.

Now, in traditional teaching, there’s teacher who stands in front of a big group of students and gives a lecture while the students scramble to listen, understand, and remember everything teacher is saying.

It can be hard to keep track all of that new information, let alone really absorb it. In contrast, problem-based learning is designed to teach students how do teach themselves while becoming master problem solvers along the way!

The classroom looks like this: a handful of students work in small groups exploring real-life scenarios with the guidance of a tutor.

Problem-based learning is often used in medical education where students work through clinical cases based on real life patients.

As an example, let’s say that our problem-based learning case describes a 72-year-old man who has chest pain. The student-doctors start thinking about this problem by brainstorming a list of follow up questions.

Where exactly is the pain? When did it start?

Are there any other symptoms? What is the past medical, drug, and family history?

Could the patient have a heart, gastrointestinal, lung or even musculoskeletal problem? Over the course of the session, the case might include lab data, pictures, videos or even a real life patient actor who will answer their questions.

Together, the students figure out what they already know and where they may have gaps in their knowledge. Many questions start threads of information that lead to more questions and more threads and it can quickly evolve into a giant tangled spider web of knowledge and questions!

All of the information and these questions are tracked by a student scribe either on a whiteboard or a shared document online.

Many groups also create concept maps to organize their thoughts, to help untangle the web, and that helps mirror how our brains work to construct knowledge.

So while the students are asking questions about the problem, creating and tangling and untangling information - where’s the tutor and what’s their job?

Well, the tutor supports self-directed learning by facilitating the process, generally staying in the background, and strategically directing the discussion to get students to dig deeper into the material.

The tutor also helps make sure that everyone is participating, collaborating, and thinking critically about the problem.

Rarely do tutors provide actual information. At the end of the discussion, the group makes a list of learning issues- or “how” and “why” questions that need to be researched before the next session.

For our 72 year old man, the group might research: How exactly does the heart pump blood? Why do heart attacks cause pain?

Students divide up the list of learning issues and head off to research on their own. Now before the next class each student gathers information from online resources and books and shares it with the rest of the group.

That way, when the students meet up again, they can dive right in and apply the new information to the case. This critical step provides students with the opportunity to weave individual concepts together to get a deeper and richer understanding of the material by putting it into the larger conceptual framework of the case and our web!

- which becomes stronger, more organized, and more easily remembered! The case might be revealed in a single day or over several sessions.

Either way, students continue to build and iterate on their knowledge webs, applying what they learned and clarifying anything that’s unclear.

By actively engaging in learning through problem solving, students do more than memorize content; they also learn how to work together to build a strong web of interconnected information which they use to solve real world problems.

Additionally, students master meaningful skills like teamwork, critical thinking, lifelong learning, and communication. All right, as a quick recap, through problem-based learning students can examine cases or problems, follow their curiosity to answer specific questions that come up as they explore, and collaborate with their group to share and learn information.

In this way they can actively construct complex webs of knowledge which helps them remember the information that they use to solve this problem and the next one too!