Koschman’s work at Southern Illinois University was very interesting. Koschman shares that many thought that the PBL model was “already ideal” and didn’t need enhancement by technology. These articles were written in the 1990’s, but professionals still have a distrust of technology.
Two things struck me from the Southern Illinois University project. The first was that technology seemed to enhance the students’ experience with PBL. The second was that this group was ahead of the time. The learning lab, the case videos and chat features seem obvious solutions now, but they were new at that time.
The Hung, Harpole Bailey, and Jonassen article brought back a lot of positive learning experiences for me. I have an undergraduate degree in Political Science. I started school thinking I’d be a history major. I realized quickly that history in college was the memorization of facts. Political Science classes at my college instead used a “depth” instead of “breath” approach.
It has been over a decade since I completed those courses. I feel even more strongly that this is the best way for students to learn. I would argue that being able to access accurate information is more important now than being able to memorize it.
It is my opinion that students’ ability to evaluate, analyze and incorporate factual knowledge into solving problems is true education. I will ungracefully climb off my soapbox now.
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So I love the idea that you chose Political Science over History for your degree because of the depth vs. breadth concept. I've been giving a lot of thought to this choice between depth and breadth and I'm still not comfortable seeing these two as mutually exclusive. There has to be a way to merge quality and quantity to a happy medium instead of sacrificing one for the other. Then it brings up the issue of apprenticeship - you know one thing really well..do you really need to know anything else? I wonder...
ReplyDeleteFrom Jennifer Knott: Rachel, I totally agree that learning by doing is the best education! It was good to hear about your experience with it during your political science classes.
ReplyDeleteI think the creators of this model would be hard pressed not to incorporate a technology component if they were to reinvent the model today, as there are so many new tools to manage and share a collaborative research space. Even simple tools like social bookmarks (del.icio.us) could play a role as groups pull together resources they'll use to frame a problem.
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