As problem-based learning (PBL) has gained popularity across disciplines, its move from small medical-school inquiry groups into large-class undergraduate inquiry has led to an increasing need to understand the elements of successful PBL implementations in large classrooms. In this study, we investigated how PBL was appropriated among students to…

Video and co-design can be powerful tools to enrich problem-based learning experiences. We explore how a teacher and researcher engaged in co-design of a PBL experience focused on human-centered robotics as well as the resulting design. They explored the question "How can we design a robot that serves a need in our local community?" We…

Facilitating the collaboration of multiple groups is a critical element in problem-based learning (PBL). In face-to-face learning environments, PBL facilitators require sufficient information about a group's progress and collaboration in real time to make decisions about when and how to facilitate. The capacity of facilitator is limited as PBL…

An important aspect of PBL problems is the affordances that they hold for engaging students in discussion of important content knowledge. In this paper, I argue that one can analyze a problem in terms of a deep problem space and a broader learning space to identify the conceptual ideas for potential engagement. The problem space refers to the…

The theme of this special issue is timely as the world becomes increasingly flat and globally connected (Friedman, 2007). By focusing on an international perspective in problem-based learning (PBL), it puts culture squarely in the center, whether it is a national or disciplinary culture. The articles in this special issue represent Thailand, South…

Helping students in the professions apply conceptual ideas to the problems of practice is a key goal of problem-based learning (PBL). Because PBL is organized around small, collaborative groups, scaling up PBL to large, heterogeneous classes poses significant challenges for implementation. This study presents a hybrid model that mixes online and…

This paper describes an analysis of facilitation of a student-centered problem-based learning group. The focus of this analysis was to understand the goals and strategies of an expert facilitator in support of collaborative learning. This was accomplished through interaction analysis using video data and stimulated recall to examine two PBL group…