Author: Celia Popovic
What is Problem Based Learning (PBL)?
There are several versions of PBL used in Higher Education around the world. Among the earliest were the versions developed at Maastricht and McMaster Universities.
Rather than focus on teaching content by topic, PBL uses situations, or 'problems' as a starting point for learning. Both Maastricht and McMaster PBL approaches were originally devised for medical curriculum, but the method is now in use in a vast range of disciplines.
The thinking behind the original medical curricula PBL was to emulate the experience of a practicing medic. People don't come handily labelled as someone with diabetes, or a broken ankle, for example, it is the doctor’s role to make sense of the patient’s symptoms/problems. They present with physical, mental, emotional symptoms and the practitioner has to figure out what is wrong and how to treat them.
Maastricht PBL in their own words (2018):
This YouTube video provides another view of PBL (2016):
Resources
- Problem Based Learning, Cornell University
- Problem Based Learning, Queens University
- Problem Based Learning, McMaster University
- Team based collaborative community http://www.teambasedlearning.org/committees/european-tbl-community/
- http://www.teambasedlearning.org/books-and-basics/
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