A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

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Teaching in the disciplines
PBL 1: case begins
Self-assessment
Share knowledge
Share knowledge
Group define learning issues
PBL 3 case epilogue
PBL 3 report back
Self-directed learning
Self-directed learning
PBL 2 report back
PBL 2 case continues
Share knowledge
Group define learning issues
Figure 26.1 PBL at St George’s
(Professor Peter McCrorie, St George’s Medical School, University of London)
Boud and Feletti (1997) provide an excellent review of the range and variations of the
different models of PBL. Among the most distinctive aspects are:
• learning and teaching stems from, and comes after, exposure to a scenario or trigger
(the ‘problem’) which is presented without prior detailed teaching of all the material
involved;
• students, not the teacher, make the immediate decisions about what they will
research/learn in relation to a scenario;
• a non-didactic tutor/facilitator;
• interrogation of clinical and non-clinical subject matter;
• students report back and discuss their findings.
Teachers starting to use PBL often find they need to develop new skills. The following
guidelines are useful pointers. The facilitator:
• is not there to lecture. The facilitator keeps the process true, guides but never
leads the students (avoiding misinformation), and (in many versions) assesses
performance;