The PowerPoint presentations associated with the following workshops are presented, as available, in pdf format.

Clyde F. Herreid
PBL -- Back to the Future

What's ahead for PBL now that the Internet is here? How (if anything) does it make a difference in what we ask students to do? Can we run PBL in a virtual classroom? Indeed, will there be real classrooms (or colleges and universities) in a future where we are all hardwired into a cyberhive? PBL, who needs it?

P.K.Rangachari
To Teach and to Learn: The Past as Prologue

Active students make better learners. In fact, the teacher as an information dispenser is a fairly recent innovation. The Internet with its capacity to provide student with more information than they can handle has freed the teacher to return to his or her traditional role as a guide, mentor, and tutor. The many paths to active learning will be explored.

Maggi Savin-Baden
Deconstructing Problem-Based Learning Facilitation

The adoption of problem-based learning has added another dimension to being a teacher in higher education, yet few of us have explored the interrelationship of our conceptions of learning and the pedagogical stances we take up as facilitators. This talk seeks to deconstruct the notion of faciliation, centering on three concerns. First, that not enough attention has been paid to the role of the facilitator in problem-based learning. Second, that there is little research into the interplay of group and facilitator and the ways in which both adapt their roles. The final point is that the impact of the facilitator on student learning is under researched. The session will address some of these issues through the presentation of the speaker's recent research in order to suggest possible ways forward.

Karl A. Smith
The Role of Collaboration in Designing and Practicing Problem Based Learning

Students working together to formulate and solve hard problems and to learn dense and conceptually complex material is at the heart of problem-based learning. This address summarizes the underlying role of cooperation and collaboration in PBL as well as strategies for designing and practicing effective problem-based cooperative learning.

Oon-Seng Tan
Key Cognitive Processes in PBL Practices: Insights for PBL Facilitators (2621kB pdf)

The implementation of problem-based learning (PBL) entails not only the re-design of curriculum but also the development of effective facilitation-cum-coaching approaches. PBL curricula innovation typically involves a shift in three loci of educational preoccupation: from what content to cover to what real-world problems to present; from the role of lecturers to that of coaches; and, from the role of students as passive learners to that of active problem-solvers and self-directed learners. This workshop will highlight some insights on cognition and mediation in relation to the problem, the coach and the problem-solver. Effective PBL calls for the design of problems and learning environments that stimulate cognition. PBL tutors are not only facilitators for information, inquiry and resources but more importantly coaches in helping students develop key cognitive skills. Cognitive processes pertaining to collecting, connecting and communicating information is often taken for granted. The workshop aims to enhance tutors' understanding of students' cognitive functioning in PBL (for example, clarity of perception, systematic exploratory thinking, overcoming "locked-in" perceptions, broadening of mental fields, precision and accuracy in data gathering, restraint of impulsivity, planning behaviour, flexibility of thought, elaboration, multi-dimensional thinking, divergent thinking for ideas and solution generation and so on). Cognitive coaching is thus needed to help students learn how to identify, define and delimit problems, gain a repertoire of heuristics and gain process skills in solution construction, validation, evaluation, and inventive and open-minded thinking.