Does a Problem-Based Learning Approach Fit My Classroom?

It’s April, 1348 – one of the wettest springs in memory. People of your town are constantly muddy and soaked and chilled to the bone. Crops aren’t growing as well as they should be at this point in the year. An unknown messenger just showed up at your door bringing the first reports of the plague to your town. The “Black Death” is spreading rapidly. 96,000 already dead in Florence, and Florence is uncomfortably close to your home in Lucca. How will you protect yourself? How will you protect your community? How will you leverage the knowledge of others to help?

In many ways, the solution to this scenario, posed by Dr. Shelagh Gallagher is complex – it’s cross-curricular and requires us to consider what we know and how we would apply that prior knowledge and understanding to the situation. And there are a lot of unknowns. In fact, there likely isn’t a single solution - there may be only a “best option.”

This example of a problem-based learning scenario is one of countless possibilities for you to get your students to begin actively applying the content they learn to the world in which they live. And the best part – this doesn’t have to be a major undertaking and can be done using a “post-hole” approach. It starts with a rich scenario or a driving question that sets the stage for students to work with one another, to apply already-known (or to gather newly-learned) understandings, and engage in deep thinking. Some describe Project-based learning activities as a “fieldwork” approach to instruction.

Consider three questions matter when designing a problem-based learning activity or unit:

1. What do I want students to learn/understand/demonstrate at the completion of this unit? - These are your learning targets, your standards-focused outcomes, your assessment components. Consider using a “demonstration” of learning at the end as your unit/activity assessment. 
2. What do students already know? – This is often not just their subject-specific knowledge, but rather a breadth and depth of life experiences and academic understandings that could be acquired from the “groupthink” process. One of the best possible outcomes that could result from using a PBL approach in your classroom is that students will bring their unique knowledge and experiences into the conversation - whether gained from personal experience, personal exploration, or family or community connections.  In the scenario posed, above, I'd use my prior reading of Ken Follett's Kingsbridge trilogy to support my solution. 
3. What do students still need to know? – This is the yet-to-be-learned material – the embedded instruction component. Sometimes foundational or conceptual skills in a given unit or subject, sometimes “on-the-spot” learning, sometimes real-world experiences, sometimes “soft-skills” driven (communication, teamwork, public presentations, etc…). This might also be seen as a differentiated learning environment, where students/groups might receive the same instruction.

Better yet, complex problems such as this one can be the basis for engaging eLearning and Blended Learning lessons, particularly because they launch students into the problem-solving phase of learning, challenging them to consider and act upon what they already know while preparing for the application of new knowledge that, perhaps, has not yet been uncovered.

And because of the internet (and its array of crowd-sourced Problem-Based learning websites) it's relatively "easy" to do - give students a situation or scenario that would require them to apply learning from your class, and task them with developing a question about it. What's important is that the responsibility for learning is released to the students - they need to be free to ask questions about their learning and to uncover the answers to those questions. As teachers, it's not our job to "always" provide them with the right answer - our job is to provide them with the tools and resources to access and to determine the answer using the evidence they have available to them.

As you close out the first trimester (and approach the end of the first semester!) of this school year and leap into your planning and revisions for the one to come, you might consider using a scenario-based, or problem-based approach to breathe new life into a tired, outworn (or outdated), or under-performing lesson or activity in your classroom.

Maybe you start by integrating a video from OK Go, Dude Perfect, or RealLifeLore as the tool that helps your students develop their questions (also mentioned in my last post!). Or, maybe you go a little further and utilize some of Robert Kaplinsky's lessons, or even those from Andrew Stadel at Estimation180.com.

With the right preparation and support, this approach can be made to fit every classroom - whether using a full-on approach to redesign your classroom or as a "post-hole" approach to help solidify the gaps in understanding that students have in your units. 

It answers the question, "Why do we need to know this."

It activates prior knowledge and applied understandings from other coursework.

It transfers learning to other subject areas. 

It creates excitement. 

It pushes students to be active learners.

It forces them to find solutions, applying the skills gained in your class to real life. 

This is a great time to reach out to your instructional coaches, building administrators, and/or department leaders to get help finding resources (which may include your colleagues), brainstorming “problem” ideas for your subject or specific-student group, and/or to get feedback and assistance as you design assessments/lessons/units that integrate this method of instruction.

Is my lesson more relevant because I'm using technology?

It happens all. the. time. And the argument is often the same, despite the faulty reasoning behind the logic.


1. Students love technology.
2. Students don't love my classroom lessons.
3. If I use technology, students will love my classroom lessons.

A variation of the argument might be:

1. This lesson needs to be more engaging.
2. Technology is engaging (students love it!)
3. If I use digital resources, my lessons will be more engaging.

So where did the idea that simply adding technology to a lesson suddenly makes it more relevant or more interesting for students?

For some, the argument may be promoted by colleagues, or by administrators, or by students. But is technology really the solution to student disengagement?

I recently found a blog article focused on Digital Transformation in the business world, but one quote really struck me, particularly as we are examining similar shifts in education.

"If you want to deliver experiences that customers will love and your team will be thrilled to deliver — you must determine if new technology is what you really need. Is a digital transformation what your company needs? Do you understand what that really means?"

Let that sink in as you consider the parallels between education and the private sector. Who are our customers? Without a doubt, most teachers would say our students. Who is our team? Most would say our colleagues. Do your students need new technologies? Will our colleagues be "thrilled to deliver" lessons using new technology? Do we understand what a digital transformation of our classroom really means?

In many cases - No.

Using technology and integrating technology are not the same thing.  Technology has the ability to take our students further, to open their eyes to a world of opportunity, and to create connections between the content in our lessons and the challenges and experiences they have every day of the week.

If we really want to deliver an experience that our customer - the student - will love, we need to recognize that technology might not be the silver bullet that revitalizes a low-energy classroom full of disengaged students. As with so much else, if we don't have a vision for its use, beyond just using it, the digital transformation in our schools lacks a solid foundation.

At this year's Indiana Connected Educators Conference, I have the opportunity, along with my Casey Stansifer, to share and discuss the difficult challenge we all face with striking the right balance between promoting complex thinking among students and leveraging the technologies available within our classrooms. At the core of our presentation we'll examine how we can promote knowledge transfer and we'll share some key technology resources that can support our shared outcomes.
colleague,

We can't start with the technology. Alone, it won't make much difference and we're wasting the most precious of resources - our students' opportunities to achieve more.

Good lesson design isn't just about the technology. Rather, it's about the the purposeful, outcomes-focused inclusion of technology that helps move our lessons further (increasing the cognitive complexity (rigor)) and challenges our students to think differently about the skills (not just the content - we want knowledge transfer (relevance)) we are teaching.

In short, it's time for us, as teachers, to step back and take a closer look at "what" we are teaching - not just how we're doing it. We need to rethink the cognitive range we ask our students to span and we need to re-examine the depth of application we ask our students to demonstrate.

"As with any technology used in the classroom, its power to transform is only as good as its strategic implementation."

As my colleague, Andy Deatrick, so often asks - "are we teaching students to 'solve [math] problems' (content focused) or are we teaching them to be problem solvers?" Relevance is dependent upon transferability of knowledge.

So back to the initial question: Is my lesson more relevant because I'm using technology?

As revealed earlier, "Relevant" refers to something being closely connected or appropriate to what is being done or considered. What a great definition!

Instructional Relevance does not mean that students enjoy a lesson because we've integrated technology, rather it reveals that there is a connection between the designed application of technology and the skill students will improve during the learning exercise.

Image Source: Bryan Mather

The lesson becomes more relevant when we ask our students to use what we teach, not when we ask them to use technology to do something.

It becomes more relevant when we challenge them to demonstrate their mastery of the skills. 

It becomes more relevant when we empower them to embrace trial and error, to make mistakes and to revise and reflect on their thinking. 

It becomes more relevant when we allow healthy and safe spaces for collaboration and for asking difficult questions and justifying complex answers, building each student's collective competency to transfer understanding to unforeseen situations.

It becomes more relevant when students create solutions, not just PowerPoint presentations.

So let's start planning our lessons by focusing on the skills students gain not on the technology students use. 

Let's start planning our units with an awareness of how students will demonstrate the depth of their knowledge, and not with the task they will complete.

And let's start planning our school year by focusing on the relationships we will develop with our students, supporting them when they take risks, encouraging them to persevere in the face of difficult experiences, and challenging them to revise and reflect on their experiences.

What about our use of technology? Yes - use it when it empowers students to go further and to do more than they ever thought possible.

“It is much easier to add technology to do exactly what has been done before—the same curriculum, same assessments, same schedule, same assignments—than to fundamentally redesign the work and the culture of learning.”

- Alan November