Problem-Based Learning: Ten Guidelines For Classroom Development

Abstract

Problem-Based Learning is a pedagogical strategy that emerged in the field of health sciences, specifically in medicine, which, given its positive results, has spread to other fields of knowledge, such as education. It is epistemologically based on social constructivism, which states that learning is a dynamic and interactive process and not a copy of reality. It is a part of the active strategies that, through inquiry and/or research, focus on the student as the subject responsible for their learning.

The distinguishing feature from other teaching strategies is the “problem,” which is taken as a starting point. It must be real, contextual, arouse students' interest, and create a cognitive challenge. The problem takes shape in an informative-expository text, which must be well written, and may include images, tables, and graphs, among other elements. It must have references and, of course, questions that act as triggers for students to mobilize their prior knowledge, propose their initial hypotheses, and design and organize a work plan, which will serve as an organizational guide for the activities they will carry out to solve the problem.

Problems must be designed by the teaching staff, considering prior knowledge of the students, allowing them to generate links, relationships, and scaffolding with the new information. It is also important to bear in mind the skills they have and those they can continue to develop, thereby promoting meaningful, situated, and contextualized learning.

Problem-based learning promotes the integration of disciplines, encourages the development of scientific thinking and skills to achieve a better understanding of natural and social phenomena, and fosters the formation of critical, curious, proactive, creative, and autonomous citizens with the ability to work in teams and make informed decisions, among other aspects. The design and implementation of the strategy requires consideration of the active role of teachers and students, reflection on school research, its importance, and the ways in which it takes form in school institutions.

This proposal can be adapted to the specific conditions of institutions, teachers, and students, as well as the resources and skills that need to be strengthened. In this sense, in addition to a solid theoretical and methodological conceptualization, it requires planning and monitoring, specification of the expected products in each of the stages of development, a flexible schedule, opening spaces for tutoring and monitoring, evaluation, and socialization of progress and the final product using different instruments, which must be previously known to the students.

Based on the authors' experience in applying this strategy at different educational levels, this text proposes ten guiding aspects for its development, which do not aim to exhaust the strategy. On the contrary, it aims to open up the possibility to continue to reconfigure not only the strategy but also aspects related to the curriculum, and the role of teachers and the school, among other aspects.