Advantages Of Problem Based Learning

Education sector is facing a numbers of problems as result of dramatically changing and development of education field. So teaching methods must be changed to reach the level of that development. It should stimulate senses of students and develop their skills and attitude in receiving information. A good example for new teaching method that have been started to be applied in a lot of schools is problem based learning (PBL).

PBL is a type of teaching curriculum based on making students to face problems in certain framework then ask from them to find appropriate solutions by providing a good educational environment to them. The purpose from this strategy is to motivate the active independent learning and thinking of students, and to improve

After that other medical schools started to apply this type of curriculum such as University of Newcastle in Australia and University of New Mexico in USA .

Then other non-medical fields adopt PBL such as engineering, business, law, higher education …..etc.

Definitions :

The origin definition of PBL is:

• PBL is both a curriculum and a process. The curriculum consists of carefully selected and designed problems that demand from the learner acquisition of critical knowledge, problem solving proficiency, self-directed learning strategies, and team participation skills. The process replicates the commonly used systemic approach to resolving problems or meeting challenges that are encountered in life and career (Barrows & Kelson).

Other definitions were generated to be fit with goals and aims of some teachers and their institution include :

• PBL is an approach to structuring the curriculum which involves confronting students with problems from practice which provides a stimulus for learning (Boud & Feletti,

• At next meeting students share the information they have gathered and create new hypothesis or reject the others based on their information.

• At the end of given period (usually one week) students summarize the solutions of problem and integrate their learning.

PBL steps:

There are seven steps for PBL that can contribute to success of this process:

1- Identifying the problem:

Students recognize the problem and discus it together. They may need some encourage to read deeply about the problem.

2- Explore pre-existing knowledge:

Students try to find the pure meaning behind every words that explain the problem and review the basic knowledge they have before going deeply in searching about information. This step will help to avoid non-useful searching.

3- Generate hypothesis and possible mechanism:

Students create hypothesis depend on discussion and analysis they have done in tutorial. Hypothesis must be related to the topics of problem and avoid to fall in other topic that not related to the given problem. Tutor play an important role in keeping student focus in the mean objectives of given problem by directing them and advise them to the right