Problem-Based Learning

There is an urban legend about novice metalworkers. Their teachers tell them to carve a complex structure out of a solid block of metal with only hand tools at their disposal. After they complete this tedious and seemingly impossible problem, what do you suppose was accomplished by the student? They became true experts with hand tools.

What about famous Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid movie? Who can forget how he taught his student, Daniel-san, how to perform hard labor? And yet, after this goal was achieved, it turns out Daniel-san learned the basics of karate.

Through solving a problem or reaching for a goal, learning was made inevitable.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is where you start with a problem that needs to be solved, and you force learning through the process of solving that problem. You try to accomplish a goal that necessitates learning. Instead of setting out to learn X, the idea is to set a goal of solving problem Y, and in the process, learning X. Of course, this is pure learning transfer.

Usually, we learn information and skills in a linear manner. In school, a traditional approach is commonly used: material is given to us, we memorize it, and we are shown how that information solves a problem. This might even be how you structure your learning when you’re by yourself—because you don’t know anything different.

PBL requires you to identify what you already know about the problem and what knowledge and resources you still need, to figure out how and where to obtain that new information, and finally how to piece together a solution to the problem. This is far different from the linear approach of most schooling. We can draw on my failed romantic escapades as an adolescent for illustration.

I wanted to impress Jessica from Spanish class. It’s a noble and mighty motivation that has been the impetus for many changes in the life of a young (and old) male. We were in the same Spanish class, and I had the good fortune of sitting directly behind her. It turns out she wasn’t too interested in Spanish, so she would constantly turn around and ask me for help.

I would first get caught in her eyes, but then my spirits would fall because I realized I had no idea how to answer her questions. What if she started asking the other guys in the class? I didn’t want that!

With that in mind, I began to study and learn Spanish so she would have all the more reason to continue turning around and talking to me. It’s amazing what you can do when you have the proper motivation for it, and I probably became fluent more quickly than anyone in the class that year. What’s more, I would look up obscure or complex phrases solely to impress her, just in case I had the opportunity.

I created a massive set of flashcards. They started with one word on the back of each card, but by the end of the school year, they had three to four sentences on the back of each, all in Spanish. I got an A+ in the class, one of the few in my high school career, but I never did get anywhere with Jessica.

This is a classic case of PBL—I wanted to solve the problem of X (Jessica), but I ended up learning Y (Spanish) in the process.

Of course, the key for us is to be deliberate about the problem you spend your time solving, so what you learn helps you accomplish what you want. It can be as simple as wanting to master a new scale on the guitar, and attempting to play a difficult song that incorporates that scale. You can see how focusing on solving a problem can be more helpful and educational than simply reading a textbook or hearing a lecture. There’s certainly something to be said for firsthand experience.

since John Dewey’s pivotal: 1916

Fast forward to the: 1960

What questions should they ask of the patient? What information do they need from the patient? What tests should be run? What do the results of those tests mean? How do the results determine the course of treatment? By asking and answering all of these questions in the process of PBL, medical students ultimately learn how to treat patients.

Imagine that a medical student is presented with the following case: A sixty-six-year-old male patient comes in to the office complaining of recent shortness of breath. What are the next steps in this blank canvas?

In addition to medical, family, and social histories, the student would want to find out how long the symptoms have been occurring, at what time of day, what activities lead to shortness of breath, and whether anything makes it worse or better. The physical exam, then, becomes problem-focused: check blood pressure, listen to heart and lungs, check legs for edema, etc. Next the student would determine whether any lab tests or X-rays need to be done. And then based on those results, the student would come up with a plan for treatment. And that’s just for starters.

If the instructor wanted the student to learn about how to deal with potential heart problems, they accomplished that. By applying their investigative skills to real-world cases, the learning was more realistic, more memorable, and more engaging for the medical students. Research has shown that when learning is problem-based for medical students, clinical reasoning and problem-solving skills improve, learning is more in-depth, and concepts are integrated for better overall understanding of the material.

PBL forces students to take ownership of the solution and approach, and they absorb a concept or set of information in an entirely different manner. Instead of simply solving for X, they must come up with the entire equation that leads to X. It involves a deep sense of exploration and analysis, both of which lead to a greater understanding than simple regurgitation.

PBL leads to greater self-motivation as well because rather than learning for learning’s sake, there is a real-life issue at stake, with real-life consequences.

Living in the “real world,” we typically aren’t given case scenarios or assigned to group projects (at least not in the elementary-school sense of the phrase) to assist in our learning goals. Whether we know it or not, we can put ourselves in a position to enhance our learning by directing it to specific purposes. What follows are a few examples of how to find a problem that will necessitate further learning on your part.

Meal Planning. For instance, you want to solve a problem of dealing with delayed and frantic dinners. You choose this task because, besides solving the problem of unnecessary stress and anxiety, you will learn how to become a better cook in every sense of the word. You want to solve X (stressful meals) but along the way also learn Y (how to cook better).

So, what steps would you take to become more proficient in the kitchen? One way would be to implement a meal-planning system to allow you to try new recipes and techniques. First, determine what do you already know about the problem? Your family needs to eat. Recipes would be nice, perhaps starting out easy and then becoming more involved. You need the ingredients to make those recipes, a schedule of what meal to serve when, and a strategy for how you will tackle the more advanced techniques.

What do you still need to know? You need actual recipes and ingredient lists. You need some sort of organized plan for when you’ll serve each dinner, probably a calendar. You may want to identify specific skills you want to acquire.

Where will you obtain new information to help solve this problem? Maybe you start by asking members of your family to share their three favorite meals with you. Then you hop on Pinterest to find some recipes. From there, you make a grocery list, maybe on a notepad, or your computer in a Word doc, or a grocery app you find. Next you need to put your meals onto a calendar. Again, you may do this on your computer, or you might find a meal-planning printable or app. And maybe you want to explore online grocery ordering with delivery or pickup to further save time (and probably impulse spending). You’ll need to figure out how you will learn new cooking approaches: reading, YouTube videos, going to a class, etc.

By making a strategic plan to enhance your cooking skills, you have solved your mealtime chaos by using PBL! You identified what you already knew (you need ideas about what new skills you wanted to learn, meal ideas, recipes, a grocery list), figured out what you still needed to know (the techniques themselves, specific recipes, ingredient lists, a meal calendar), and where you found that information (family, Pinterest, apps, books, online, computer, etc.).

Not only have you created a plan for your family’s upcoming meals, you have devised a strategy to use moving forward week after week, month after month, all the while learning new techniques and improving your cooking skills. By developing a meal-planning strategy, you are saving time and money, and you may see a decrease in chaos and an increase in family satisfaction with meals. Call it killing two birds with one stone.

The Broken Toaster. Let’s consider a more complicated problem. Your toaster seems to no longer be working, and you have toast for breakfast every day. You’ve always wanted to learn more about electronics and put to use what you learned years ago. You want to solve X (broken toaster) but along the way also learn Y (basic electronics skills). What would PBL look like in this somewhat daunting scenario?

The first step is to determine what you already know. Your toaster isn’t functioning. You’re pretty handy and would consider fixing it yourself. You know a little about wiring. And you really like your toaster, a model that is no longer made.

What, then, do you need to know to solve this problem? You will need to determine the specific cause of your toaster malfunction. You will potentially require some instruction for aspects of the problem outside your current skill set. You will need tools and supplies as well as the time and a place to work on your toaster.

In the information-gathering stage, you will disassemble your toaster to try to determine the problem. You may look online or go to the library for a “fix-it” manual for small appliances. There are YouTube videos you could consult for a visual tutorial. Then, once you’ve determined the issue, learned how to fix it, and made the repair, you’re back in business with your toaster.

Problem-based learning provides a helpful framework for a thoughtful, organized way to approach a problem, challenge, or dilemma in order to learn a new skill or new information. You can think of PBL as a series of steps as demonstrated in the examples above.

Define your problem.

Determine what you already know.

List potential solutions and choose the one most likely to succeed.

Break the steps into action items (a timeline often helps).

Identify what you still need to know and how you will get that information.

There are some distinct advantages to PBL. Not only will you have better retention of what you have learned, you will generally gain a deeper understanding of the problem and solutions than if you had taken a less focused approach. While it can seem like a problem-based approach has too many steps and will take too long, generally PBL tends to save you time in the long run since you aren’t randomly trying less-well-thought-out solution after solution. Planning and formulating a systematic plan ultimately saves you time, and often money, too! That is the benefit of directly solving a problem—you get to the heart of what matters.

PBL can be applied to most any aspect of your life. You may have to get creative in how to design a problem or goal around something you want to learn, but this is the type of learning technique that will skyrocket your progress. After all, there’s only so much we can gain without applying what we know to the real world via learning transfer.