The Minnesota Zoo's School of Environmental Studies is an optional, interdisciplinary program open to juniors and seniors from four comprehensive high schools. The problems posed, like those in the world, require students to think across disciplines. Students measure, analyze, map, photograph, display, and present findings to the local community…

An allied health occupations education program undertaken for the first time at a Dutch university and characterized by an interdisciplinary, problem-oriented approach is described. Its first year of operation is evaluated in terms of staff and student time requirements and administrative organization. (MSE)

A new medical curriculum at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, is described. Student knowledge, understanding, and skills are developed through the study of a sequence of clinical problems integrated with appropriate practical and clinical activities. Such an innovative curriculum implies different roles for academic staff. (Author/MLW)

Process-oriented learning designs are innovative learning activities that include a set of inter-related learning tasks and are generic (could be used across disciplines). An example includes a problem-solving process widely used in problem-based learning today. Most of the existing process-oriented learning designs are not documented, let alone…

This issue of "Journal for Learning the Arts: A Research Journal on Arts Integration in Schools and Communities" embodies the range of arts and learning possible in our schools and communities. The articles reflect the diverse landscape of arts education, including dance, poetry, visual arts, drama, music and media. Each author takes to…

Two applications of interdisciplinary problem-based learning at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy are described. In one application, seniors investigate dilemmas resulting from modern advances in science and technology; in the other sophomores study the critical decisions which drove American development. Evidence of program…

This is a step-by-step guide to designing problem-based learning across the curriculum. Contents show teachers how to develop student-centered, problem-based curriculum, manage student projects across a range of subjects and disciplines, assess projects using portfolios, and involve community members as project mentors. Numerous examples are…

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching technique that educates by presenting students with a situation that leads to a problem for them to solve. Rather than finding a single correct answer, students interpret the question, gather additional information, create possible solutions, evaluate options, and present conclusions. This book shows…

Purpose: To distinguish sustainable development education from environmental education and stress the importance of problem-based interdisciplinary learning to sustainable development education. Design/methodology/approach: A range of published works relating to sustainable development education are critiqued, an introduction to complexity theory…

A consistent lesson from the literature on school change is that no single method exists for improving schools. In that spirit, this book presents a collection of short articles that address a wide sampling of ideas and trends in educational change. All the articles were originally published in "Education Update," the official member…

A required fourth-year course integrating the social sciences and humanities into the required clinical medical curriculum at Dartmouth Medical School is intended to prepare students to deal with the social and humanistic issues involved in medical practice, including law, ethics, economics, and social anthropology. (MSE)

Presents a continuing study on the Chesapeake Bay as an example of a problem-based approach to environmental education using real life problems. Argues that the approach gives students responsibility for their own learning. (DDR)

The multidisciplinary approach to pharmacy education used at the University of Southern California is characterized by problem-solving curricula, instruction by faculty from a diverse group of disciplines, small-group instruction with mixed disciplines, real-world case studies, evaluation by testing with new problems, and progressive conceptual…

The key faculty teaching skills needed at McMaster University are those of facilitating problem-based, self-directed learning in small groups. A series of interdisciplinary workshops, offered to the school's medical faculty and to faculty from other health sciences centers to help them improve their skills, allows for direct observation, practice,…

A curriculum involving reduced lecture time, small-group tutorials, a commitment to problem-based learning (PBL), and a strong reliance on self-directed study, was implemented at Harvard Medical School in 1985. This study focuses on the attitudes of 14 faculty tutors who had never tutored in a PBL curriculum. (MLW)