Problem-Based Learning: A Modern Educational Approach

It is a well-known fact that educators are always looking for new and improved ways to educate their students. It’s also safe to bet that throughout your personal education the methods that teachers were teaching varied from class to class, they might even have varied substantially. Take a moment to think about the way students learn best, whether it be hands-on learning or by reading from a text book. Nevertheless, everyone learns differently and because of this, educators must continually reevaluate the way they are teaching their students. One of the more popular ways of teaching students is referred to as problem-based learning. If you are not familiar with the term, according Zeng Furong, Deng Guangtong, Zhao Wang, and Liu Longfei problem-based

It’s not hard to understand that with modern technology and the mindset of our youth, students might not flourish to the best of their ability with old-style teaching. Due to this, educators must always be advancing, just as technology is, thus problem-based learning is appealing. L. B. Nilson of Cornell University explains some advantages of using problem-based learning; “Working in teams. Oral and written communication. Critical thinking and analysis. Explaining concepts. Confidence. Researching and information literacy. Self-directed learning.” (Nilson 2010) By challenging students to meet more advanced standards such as those associated with problem-based learning we are not only holding students to a high standard of learning, but also utilizing more professional practices. Why use problem-based learning? Good question! J. R. Savery of Learning Theories have a couple of ideas to answer that question; “Learning is driven by challenging, open-ended problems with no one “right” answer, causing students to be creative and deeper thinkers. Also, students work as self-directed, active investigators and problem solvers in small collaborative groups, and teachers adopt the role as facilitators of learning, guiding the learning process and promoting an environment of inquiry.” (Savery 2016) By using this type of