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Faculty take PBL techniques to Turkey and Peru 3:54 p.m., Aug. 9, 2006--George Watson, senior associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and Mark Serva, associate professor of accounting and management information systems, have been working on implementing Problem-Based Learning (PBL) techniques at UD for years. Their efforts, however, have caught the attention of institutions around the world. Watson and Serva recently completed a four-day workshop at the Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, Turkey, to demonstrate how PBL techniques can be used in that university's classrooms. Watson and Serva worked with 45 faculty members with business administration, economics, international relations and tourism management backgrounds who are interested in using PBL in their teaching. Serva said the workshop was extremely successful. “Their business college has embraced PBL, and the president of Dokuz Eylul has asked that the college move completely to PBL by next year,” Serva said. “As in any situation, the support is mixed among the faculty, but it was obvious that it is growing rapidly.” A form of collaborative learning, PBL allows student to work in groups or teams to tackle problems instead of listening to lectures. Serva said the professors always start with problems that students are expected to solve. “The students may work in teams, be required to do outside research and make judgments based on incomplete information,” he said. “We believe it results in high student retention of information and increased understanding of the types of problems a student will face after graduation.” Serva said the PBL workshops run the whole day and usually began with a section called “Experience Yourself,” in which workshop participants are given a problem to solve. Participants also are taught how to manage student teams, what makes an interesting problem, how to assess student performance and available technology that supports a PBL classroom. Serva said participants also work on their own problems, which they present at the end of the workshop. Overseas interest in UD's PBL workshops began in 1997 with the development of a web site to open workshops to institutions around the world. Watson said faculty abroad began to look at the material and contacted UD to invite its PBL experts to their institutions. “UD is very well-known now internationally for PBL,” Watson said, “so people tend to hear about us.” Watson said he and Deborah Allen, associate professor of biology, have worked with universities from places such as Peru, Singapore, Malaysia and Japan. “A lot of people are taking a hard look at PBL,” Watson said. “This is one approach that seems to be getting a lot of attention.” Watson and Serva, as well as seven UD faculty members and one graduate student, recently attended the 2006 PBL conference, “Connecting to the Real World,” in Lima, Peru. With the presentations and lectures in both Spanish and English, the conference drew more than 450 participants from more than 40 countries. The conference is organized through PAN-PBL, the Pan-American Network for Problem-Based Learning, which promotes PBL in educational systems across the Americas. Watson, who has traveled to Peru eight times for PBL, said UD is very active in the conferences, which are held around the world every two years. “We learned a lot and I think UD contributed a lot to the conference,” he said. Watson said PBL allows students to develop the skills they need after graduation, such as oral and written communication skills, teamwork and problem solving. “I think PBL centers education around the interests of the students,” he said. “We really try to engage the students and move the responsibility of learning onto the students. It's an exceptional model for implementing student engagement in learning.” PBL workshops were offered to UD faculty last spring through UD's Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education (ITUE). Between 20 and 30 UD faculty members attended the workshops. Watson said ITUE has worked with more than 300 UD faculty members and 200 outside the UD community. For more information about PBL, visit [www.udel.edu/pbl]. Article by Julia Parmley, AS 07 |
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