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Problem Based Learning Meets Needs?

Two interactions with members of MSP2 a couple of weeks ago (I know, not good Web 2.0 response time!) prompted me to go looking in NMSA's resources. Both interactions were with MSP2 members: Carla Watts, a teacher in Illinois, and Bernardo Leon De La Barra, lecturer in engineering at University of Tasmania. Carla posted a question to the Math Group asking for advice about how to manage a wide range of abilities in her math class. Bernardo commented that Australia, like the U.S. and other countries, is challenged with a shrinking number of students entering the STEM fields.

Curious about whether there were any recent NMSA publications that touched on this, I checked out RMLE Onlne (Research in Middle Level Education) and found the article, "Inclusion and Problem-Based Learning: Roles of Students in a Mixed... The article is a case study documenting the interactions among three mixed-ability students in a 7th grade science class. Much of the article presents and analyzes the observed interactions among the three students.

The article describes problem-base learning (PBL) as a methodology where students collaborate to solve "ill-structured problems"--problems with no clear solution. This is not to suggest that PBL is "ill-structured," though. In fact, there are some guidelines and processes necessary for PBL to work as an effective instructional tool (e.g., students collaboratively decide what they know, don't know, need to know; they individually research content; they collectively decide on a solution).

According to the writers of this article, research on PBL has tended to be done with gifted students, special needs students, or average students--but no one has looked at mixed ability groups using PBL. These writers/researchers decided to do a case study of PBL with a mixed ability group of 2 average ability students and 1 special needs student.

So...jump to the conclusion: PBL works and fits the characteristics of effective middle school curriculum: Curriculum is "relevant, challenging, integrative, and exploratory." (Actually, curriculum for ANY student group, regardless of age, should be "relevant, challenge, integrative, and exploratory"!) PBL helps all students develop metacognitive skills, social skills, and deeper content knowledge. PBL encourages deeper engagement and motivation for both the able student and the student who is being mainstreamed. And of course, engagement and motivation lead to deeper learning. Engagement and motivation also have a positive impact on classroom behavior (If I enjoy what I'm doing, I stay involved in positive ways). And, the more positive experiences, engagement, learning that students have with content, the more likely they are to consider career possibilities related to that content.

The writers admit that they've only done a limited focused study--one case study on one small group. But the findings should be encouraging to any teacher who wants to try PBL to address the issues of different abilities, motivation, and expectations about STEM careers.RMLE article on PBL.pdf

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Comment by Kim Lightle on July 7, 2009 at 3:14pm: Sounds amazing - we just got done with one of our online publications on Forensic Science - sounds like you have lots to share! Do you follow a crime scene curriculum or have you and your colleagues developed your own?

Comment by Eileen Bendixsen on July 7, 2009 at 2:55pm: I teach seventh grade science and my favorite science classes are when I turn the teaching and learning over to the students. This year I had two accelerated classes and two classes that were inclusion classes with a mixture of average students and special needs students. I like the mixture of different classes. Each class is very different. When we do inquiry all four classes are doing the same thing and frequently groups in the "average" or inclusion class will figure out how to solve the problem first.

We spend the last two weeks of school with a crime scene. We set up a crime on the stage in the cafeteria and then spend the next week looking at all of the evidence. One of the things that the kids have to get past is that in the end they are going to give the "answer" not us.

In the end it is the inquiry parts of my lessons that my students remember at the end of the year or talk about when they come back to visit years later.

Comment by Karolee Smiley on July 7, 2009 at 1:32pm: The real world does not always have a simple right answer, so teaching open-ended problem solving is essential. It is interesting how our system manages to "school out" inquiry and creativity, two of the most desirable qualities in the professional world.

As a science teacher, I use a version of PBL to help students practice the scientific method called HBL (hypothesis based learning). Besides practicing the methodologies, it allows some flexibility in exploring a concept that allows the students to be a part of the decision making process, empowering them and encouraging "buy-in", but still focused on the topic at hand.

There are a list of HBL actvities on HBL4U.org. Warning, sometimes the site is very slow to load.

Comment by Kim Lightle on July 7, 2009 at 10:06am: That question of WHY makes me think of something I heard Herb Thier say that really made an impression on me. He said he had been in hundreds of classrooms where students had been really busy - he would ask them why they were doing what they doing but they could only answer what they were doing. He would then ask the teacher - why are you having the students do whatever it was and most of the time they couldn't answer the why either. Thinking through the WHY and making decisions on WHAT experiences we want students to have that supports the WHY is really hard.

Comment by Rebecca Lawson on July 6, 2009 at 11:00pm: Here is another slant on problem-based learning. You may want to check out the World Problem Solvers' Agency.
http://www.worldproblemsolvers.org

This group encourages students to create PSA's to help in solving a problem. This could be a catalyst for learning that is both problem-based and project based. Other "educational" terms that come to mind are collaborative, integrated, engaging, etc.

Comment by Rebecca Lawson on July 6, 2009 at 10:43pm: Mary, Thanks for pushing us to look at this topic.

Whether problem-based (which I have never done) or project-based, I believe one of the biggest challenges is the lack of a natural tendency towards inquiry. I am have often called myself the "Queen of Questions." Sometimes I ask so many questions I drive adults crazy.

Perhaps this is what has happened to our children. We know that they are naturally curious when they are pre-school. Perhaps this "question-box" state was not encouraged by parents and teachers to the point that now they don't "want to know."

The same is true of wanting to do one's best. We think that project-based learning is a great way to differentiate instruction; however, it is difficult to get the more able students to stretch themselves to make their projects better - even when they are allowed to choose the topics.

One thing I believe we should do more is simply ask WHY. ....and use wait time.in order to make either of these two types of projects work well, teachers and administrators need to realize that they take time in order to get to the deeper understandings. Teachers must also become comfortable with the "uncomfortable silence" that waiting until someone is ready to talk about the solution. ... and we have to take pains to make sure everyone participates.

Comment by Mary Henton on July 6, 2009 at 4:10pm: Thanks, Doug, for being so honest! So...parents are pushing back and want their kids to just get the "right" answers, eh??
M

Comment by Doug Darfus on July 6, 2009 at 10:29am: I use to do a lot of PBL when I worked at the career center. I situation as simple as, "How do we build a saw-horse" lent itself to a ton of mathematics that the students (gifted, average, & learning disabled) in carpentry engaged in. No one way to solve the problem, but it was important to them.

Now I'm in a higher socioeconomic district with lots of parental involvement. If I try to do PBL I tend to get complaints from both students and parents... especially if any sort of grade is attached to it. It makes it difficult and I find myself steering away from such activities to make my own life easier.

Another problem doing PBL with my current population of students is that is hard to find a problem that everyone is interested in. They usually don't have many common interests that I can get a good mathematics problem. Also, the gifted students are pulled out for accelerated math, and the lower students are pulled out for integrated math... I'm left with the typical student.

Now I'm going to have to go read the article and see if I can make some improvements.

Comment by Mary Henton on July 6, 2009 at 7:07am: Thanks, Tom, for your "on-the-ground and in-the-classroom" perspective. Without having the first-hand experience of facilitating PBL in the classroom, I can see that there are challenges for the teacher. I can see that one of the entry points is discerning the amount and depth of background knowledge kids need prior to a PBL-designed curriculum.

It is sad, isn't it, that even by middle school students are conditioned to provide "right or wrong" answers? When I worked with college faculty several years ago, they were lamenting the same thing. These faculty wanted their students to get in, dig, think, wrestle; but their students were saying, "Just tell us what you want us to learn." I implore you to keep chipping away at PBL and other methods to engage kids in the thinking process.

Kim...as I understand it, while both problem-based and project-based curriculum use real-life, relevant topics around which to build the curriculum, problem-based is more open-ended. Now, how to discern the difference? I need to look deeper into the topic, as well.

Comment by Kim Lightle on July 3, 2009 at 11:13am: Sound like its time for MSP2 to put together a publication on PBL. I have another question - what is the difference between problem-based learning and project-based learning? Guess I need to do some investigating.