Students participate more in a classroom and also report a better understanding of course concepts when steps are taken to actively engage them. The Student Engagement (SE) Survey was developed and used in this study for measuring student engagement at the class level and consisted of 14 questions adapted from the original National Survey of…

Recent calls have been made for a fundamental reorientation in higher education from a curriculum that simply transmits information (learner as receiver) to one that encourages students actively to construct their own knowledge and practice using new skills and concepts (learner as constructor). In response, the Case Analysis in Organisational…

This paper first describes problem-based learning; second describes how a research methods course in geography is taught using a problem-based learning approach; and finally relates student and staff experiences of this approach. The course is run through regular group meetings, two residential field trips and optional skills-based workshops.…

The authors examined teachers' beliefs and classroom practices during a 2-year professional development program that required middle-school teachers to develop, implement, and revise problem-based, interdisciplinary curricula focusing on locally relevant environmental health issues. The results of the study indicate that over the course of the…

This study reports on a pilot study of a public speaking class in which problem-based learning and service-learning were combined in a freshman engagement course. The paper describes how the two elements were combined and provides assessments that used the University of California-Berkeley Service-Learning Attitudinal Survey, narrative responses…

The tradition of the active mind views knowledge as provisionally constructed by the mind in perpetual interaction with the world. There are no substitutes for students' and teachers' consistent application of intelligence and steady thinking. A problem-based-learning approach to teacher education exemplifies John Dewey's laboratory model.…

The authors examined the potential differences between problem-based learning (PBL) and traditional instructional approaches in building knowledge of macroeconomic concepts and principles in high school students. Using data from 252 economics students at 11 high schools and controlling for individual characteristics, most notably verbal ability,…

Problem-based learning architecture typically involves a shift in three loci of educational preoccupation, namely (1) content coverage to problem engagement; (2) role of lecturing to role of coaching; and (3) students as passive learners to that of active problem-solvers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the issues of students' experiences…

This article comprises the results of a qualitative study designed to examine community college leaders' attitudes toward problem-based learning as a method for teaching leadership. The respondents in the study participated in a year-long community college leadership academy, which used problem-based learning as the primary instructional method.…

This paper presents a case where students can learn about aquatic communities. In this case, students speculate on what may have caused a major fish kill in an estuary in North Carolina. In the process, they explore how land runoff and excess nutrients affect aquatic communities. They also learn about the complex life cycle of the dinoflagellate…

Medical education has been shown to negatively influence student attitudes toward certain types of patient populations. Past research does not inform current educational practice because today's medical school environment is different from when most of the published research was conducted. There are more female students, curricular innovations…

Technology and design was added to the Northern Ireland curriculum in September 1992 and through it, teachers seek to address the need for pupils to understand the ever-changing man-made world by developing skills and understanding in its four elements of designing, communicating, manufacturing and the use of energy and control. To be effective in…

This study evaluated the effects of problem-based learning (PBL) in social work education. The participants were 132 second-year social work students who took the core courses of Social Work Theory and Practice and Skills Laboratory in the PBL mode. A 40-item scale was used to measure the students' perceptions of their social work knowledge,…

Interviews with students at an all-Black, all-male school in a major northeastern city revealed that a significant proportion of the participating students had a strong preference for practical, demonstrative explanations of new concepts and information that are directly related to their everyday experiential realities. These findings suggest that…

Research reveals that successful problem solvers must possess comprehensive knowledge, and more importantly, have appropriate knowledge organization and understanding. A new taxonomy of medical problems is recommended, and it is suggested that the traditional hypothetico-deductive strategy for problem-based learning be replaced by scheme-driven…