Problem-Based Learning

Related Literature

A review of literature on Case-Based Learning describes it as an approach characterized as a student-centered, highly interactive pedagogy that changes the classroom process into a collective search for an analysis and/or solution to a specific problem based on a “case.” The case is a text that provides information about a situation, without analyzing it. The information contained in a case study might be complex or simple—a human story that illustrates a difficult situation requiring a decision. Students are made to encounter the cases as messy, partial, ambiguous form of information (Foran, 2012; Stanford Journal, 1994).

Case study covers a wide range of problems posed for analysis. Most cases are either based on real

Accordingly, Barrows recognized that it was expecting too much of medical students to memorize vast amounts of information in traditional lecture-based segmented classes and to connect the lessons and evoke what they learned years later in clinical demonstrations. Barrows (1996) accepted Dewey’s tenet that knowledge was better learned and retained through active learning and formally developed the problem-based learning concept during the early 1960s.

Several decades later, many researchers seem to agree with Barrows’ belief in the benefits of active learning. Zull (2002) as well as many other learning theorists suggest passive learning, as delivered in the traditional lecture-based pedagogical style, is less stimulating than an active pedagogical model such as problem-based learning (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2002; Eggen & Kauchak, 1999; Silverman & Casazza, 1996). Therefore, an exploration into problem-based learning is

He believes students’ inquiries, research, reflection, comparing, contrasting, and debating of the issues are how adults learn. Bradsford, Brown, & Cocking (2000) report the contemporary school of thought of how people learn is a constructionist viewpoint. People build on the knowledge they already possess. It is a logical assumption from this view that if during the experience of learning more points of view are expressed and explored, new knowledge will be the result. Once again, Knowles and associates (1984) postulated there are distinct differences between how adults and children learn. They suggest the foundation of already gleaned experiences in the “real world” has cemented the adult as a lifelong learner. This experience acts as a foundation to explore and expand his /her knowledge