With the development, advancement and progress the older teaching techniques are no more successful in the current education. The new emerging technologies have appeared for upgrading students’ knowledge and intellect and so have transformed the emergence of problems regarding education field.
The current era of education involves high level of the communication skills, computation, technological advancement and information retrieval to enable individuals to gain and apply new knowledge and skills as needed.
Problem Based Learning (PBL) facilitates an availability to provide a format in which some essential skills will be developed. Problem based learning has its marks in the education before the formal era. It involves problems, queries or puzzles that the learner needs to solve. Thus in the problem based approach, complex, real-world problems motivate the students to recognize and research the concepts and principles required to work on in order to eradicate the problems. The process is initialized by the students themselves by working in small learning groups, gathering together collective skills at acquiring communication and integrating information. Problem Based education is recommended to follow five steps
- Think critically and analyze and solve complex real world situations.
- Discover, estimate, and use appropriate learning resources
- Work together in teams with small amount of members
- Exhibit versatile and effective communication skills, both verbal and written
- Use content knowledge and intellectual skills acquired at the university to become continual learners
Problem Based Learning is especially preferred by the medical students in order to solve certain problems. Some highly motivated students form small work groups involving a dedicated tutor in order to complete some concepts and comprehend them. This process is called Problem based learning cycle or PBL Cycle.
The Cycle begins when students are presented with a problem such as case, research paper, video tape, etc. The teams work on their ideas and the acquired knowledge with respect to the problem and try to figure out for the broad nature of the problem. Then in the process of discussions students put front the questions called learning issues and deal with those aspects of the problem they are unable to understand. These learning issues are later traced by the team in order to generate a focused discussion. Students take an active part in exchanging the knowledge and exhibiting their doubts. The next step involves ranging the learning issues according to its importance. The questions can be ranged form most important to least important and which question is to be followed by which. Also the discussion is made on which question requires team attention and which question requires individual attention. Students and the instructor also discuss on the tools and resources required to solve the learning issue. When students recollect over the whole problem they comprehend the previous learning style and amalgamate the newly acquired knowledge referring to the problem. The learning issues are later defined and which leads to progress in problem solving process. Learning is an ongoing process as an individual are more acquainted with the knowledge he explores more and more of it. Thus this process is called Problem Based Learning Cycle.
Learning is always considered at any age. Problem based learning on the other hand promotes the skill to recognize the information required for particular application. This process also allows the medium to hunt for the information, organize it in an appropriate framework and communicate it to others. This form of learning is supported in all types of educational institutions for the progress and development of the student. Knowledge gained through this process allows the students to use it appropriately.