Pengertian Problem Based Learning : Penjelasan Lengkap--
PROBLEM-BASED
LEARNING
a. Why
Problem-Based Learning?
The
last several decades have seen monumental change in all aspects of our
lives—how we communicate, conduct business, access information, and use 3
technology. Today, our students must be prepared to function in a very
different working world than existed even ten years ago. The problems that
these future professionals will be expected to solve will cross disciplinary
boundaries, and will demand innovative approaches and complex problem-solving
skills. Those of us who teach undergraduates in higher educational institutions
are obligated to rethink how we teach and what our students need to learn in
order to prepare them for this challenging time. With few exceptions, college
and university faculty embark upon the business of teaching with very little
instruction or training in pedagogy: we simply teach as we were taught. For
most of us, that experience revolved around lectures. In a traditional
undergraduate classroom, lectures are usually contentdriven, emphasizing
abstract concepts over concrete examples and applications. Assessment
techniques focus on recall of information and facts, and rarely challenge
students to perform at higher cognitive levels of understanding. This didactic
instruction reinforces in students a naïve view of learning in which the teacher
is responsible for delivering content and the students are the passive
receivers of knowledge.
b.
Why Change the Way We Teach?
What
worked in the classroom a decade (or two or three) ago, however, will no longer
suffice, for the simple reason that past approaches fail to develop the full
battery of skills and abilities desired in a contemporary college graduate. In
June of 1994, a Wingspread Conference brought together state and federal
policymakers, and leaders from the corporate, philanthropic, higher education,
and accreditation communities to discuss quality in undergraduate education.
This conference was sponsored by the Education Commission of the States (ECS),
the Johnson Foundation, the National Governors’ Association, and the National
Conference of State Legislatures. The discussion that took place was based on
the assertion that substantial improvementin American undergraduate education
is needed to prepare students to function successfully in current business and
industrial environments. The Conference developed the following list of
important characteristics of quality performance of college and university
graduates (Wingspread, 1994):
1. High-level
skills in communication, computation, technological literacy, and information
retrieval to enable individuals to gain and apply new knowledge and skills as
needed 4 THE POWER OF PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING
2. The
ability to arrive at informed judgments—that is, to effectively define
problems, gather and evaluate information related to those problems, and develop
solutions
3. The
ability to function in a global community through the possession of a range of
attitudes and dispositions including flexibility and adaptability, ease with
diversity, motivation and persistence (for example, being a self-starter), ethical
and civil behavior, creativity and resourcefulness, and the ability to work
with others, especially in team settings
4. Technical
competence in a given field
5. Demonstrated
ability to deploy all of the previous characteristics to address specific
problems in complex, real-world settings, in which the development of workable
solutions is required.
Survey
results (Czujko, 1994) of all physics baccalaureates who were employed in
either the private sector or government/national labs confirmed the Wingspread
Conference conclusions. With approximately 80 percent response to the question,
“What skills have you found to be most useful in your work?”, problem-solving,
interpersonal skills, technical writing, and management skills were cited
(greater than 60 percent) over physics knowledge. More recently, the Carnegie
Foundation’s report, Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for
America’s Research Universities (1998) stated that “traditional lectures
and note-taking were created for a time when books were scarce and costly and
lecturing to large numbers of students was an efficient means of transferring
knowledge.” Lecturing is still efficient and has persisted as the
traditional teaching method largely because it is familiar, easy, and how we
learned. It does little, however, to foster the development of process
skills to complement content knowledge. There are teaching practices, however,
that do foster such skill development without forsaking content. Quoting John
Dewey’s observation that “true learning is based on discovery guided by
mentoring rather than the transmission of knowledge,” (Boyer, 1998, p. 15) the
Boyer report urged universities to facilitate inquiry in such contexts as the
library, the laboratory, the computer, and the studio, with the expectation
that senior learners, that is, professors, will be students’ companions and
guides. The research university’s ability to create such an integrated
education will produce a particular kind of individual, one equipped with a
spirit of inquiry and a zest for problem solving; one possessed of the skill in
communication that is the hallmark of clear thinking as well as mastery of
language; one informed by a rich and diverse experience. It is that kind of
individual that will provide the scientific, technological, academic,
political, and creative leadership for the next century. (Boyer, 1998)
Student-centered, inquiry-based instruction, particularly problem-based
learning, falls right into line with this philosophy; indeed, the Boyer
Commission pointed to the PBL efforts at the University of Delaware as one
example of how to help students reach the important goals highlighted in the
report.
c.
What Is Problem-based Learning?
We
believe that problem-based learning (PBL) provides a forum in which these essential
skills will be developed. The basic principle supporting the concept of PBL is
older than formal education itself; namely, learning is initiated by a posed
problem, query, or puzzle that the learner wants to solve (Boud & Feletti,
1991). In the problem-based approach, complex, real-world problems are used to
motivate students to identify and research the concepts and principles they
need to know to work through those problems. Students work in small learning
teams, bringing together collective skill at acquiring, communicating, and
integrating information. Problem-based instruction addresses directly many of
the recommended and desirable outcomes of an undergraduate education:
specifically, the ability to do the following:
1. Think
critically and be able to analyze and solve complex, real-world problems
2. Find,
evaluate, and use appropriate learning resources • Work cooperatively in teams
and small groups
3. Demonstrate
versatile and effective communication skills, both verbal and written
4. Use
content knowledge and intellectual skills acquired at the university to become
continual learners
d. The PBL
Cycle
PBL
in the sciences traces its roots to the medical school setting where small
groups of intellectually mature, highly motivated medical students work in
small groups with a dedicated faculty tutor to learn basic science concepts in
the context of actual clinical cases. The process of problem-based instruction
(Boud & Feletti, 1997) follows:
1. Students
are presented with a problem (case, research paper, videotape, for example).
Students working in permanent groups organize their ideas and previous
knowledge related to the problem and attempt to define the broad nature of the
problem.
2. Throughout
discussion, students pose questions called “learning issues” that delineate
aspects of the problem that they do not understand. These learning issues are
recorded by the group and help generate and focus discussion. Students are
continually encouraged to define what they know and—more importantly—what they
don’t know.
3. Students
rank, in order of importance, the learning issues generated in the session.
They decide which questions will be followed up by the whole group and which
issues can be assigned to individuals, who later teach the rest of the group. Students
and instructor also discuss what resources will be needed to research the
learning issues and where they could be found.
4. When
students reconvene, they explore the previous learning issues, integrating
their new knowledge into the context of the problem. Students are also
encouraged to summarize their knowledge and connect new concepts to old ones.
They continue to define new learning issues as they progress through the
problem. Students soon see that learning is an ongoing process and that there will
always be (even for the teacher) learning issues to be explored.
PBL
fosters the ability to identify the information needed for a particular
application, where and how to seek that information, how to organize that
information in a meaningful conceptual framework, and how to communicate that
information to others. Use of cooperative working groups fosters the
development of learning communities in all classrooms, enhancing student
achievement (Johnson, Johnson, & Smith, 1991). Students who learn concepts
in the context in which they will be used are more likely to retain that
knowledge and apply it appropriately (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993). They will
also recognize that knowledge transcends artificial boundaries since
problem-based instruction highlights interconnections between disciplines and
the integration of concepts.
Baca juga : pengertian humanistic approach