My membership packet for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development arrived today. Woo hoo! I've been cruising around on the website and looking at all the online resources. It's a goldmine, folks -- finally some good work on problem-based learning. What's that? You say you don't know what problem-based learning is? Well, allow me!

Problem-based learning is an instructional strategy whereby students are presented with a real-world problem to solve at the outset of a learning experience (whether it be a seminar, a course unit, weekly topic, etc.), and they have some -- but not all -- of the resources required to solve it. Through a process of research, questioning, reflection, and trial, they must identify the various aspects of the problem, figure out what knowledge or resources they need to solve it, obtain them, and proceed to architect and construct a solution. This technique introduces students to the data, skills, and perspective required to solve problems in an applied context.

For example, one team-building activity used in a number of professional development retreats is to have the attendees (usually all employees at the same company) prepare dinner. They are grouped into teams, and the teams enter a room and are confronted with multiple kitchen tables. On each table waits an assorted group of ingredients, and the task to prepare a particular course (but not a specific recipe). There's no cookbook, but a chef stands by each table, silent as the Buddha. He or she will not speak, except to answer direct questions from the cooking teams. So what do the teams have to figure out? They have to know

• What their collective previous cooking experience is
• What kinds of things the ingredients can be combined to form without causing violent stomach heaving
• What they don't know about how to make those dishes: techniques of preparation, sequence, etc.
• How to ask specific questions that target the exact needs they have (otherwise, the chef won't answer)
• How best to organize and distribute their efforts as a team to produce the desired dish
• And perhaps most importantly, what kinds of things should they absolutely not do? What mistakes lie out there waiting to be made? How might they avoid them?

In other words, the class gets to explore the topics under study in a hands-on process of discovery and self-education. I highly recommend trying it in the classroom; if you teach, give it a shot! I think you'll see that PBL affords an instructor a wealth of possibilities for helping students master learning at all levels, from basic knowledge and comprehension on up to sophisticated approaches to anaylsis and evaluation.