[quote=“Durins Bane”]I am currently teaching this program at a junior high school and I think it would be interesting to discuss whether this type of Problem Based Learning could find merit in the ESL market. I personally think that this type of learning is better than walking naked on the beach.
My goal for this semester is to introduce the students to 2D/3D viewing. Then have the students design a dragster using AutoDesk and then actually going to the woodshop to build the dragster.
I am teaching in a school that is in a real tough neighborhood and I have found that the toughest students…the students at risk, are really getting into the program. These “made” kids are some of my best students…and that says a lot about differentiated instruction.
I have never been more satisfied in a job…
pltw.org/index.cfm
Peace,
Durinsbandsaw[/quote]Great to hear your job’s going well, DB. That looks like some really worthwhile stuff you’re doing. Thanks for posting about this. For a while I’ve been hearing about problem-based learning for EFL purposes, but haven’t looked into it much. Here’s a site about it:
pblforesl.com/
I’ve been doing a lot of what’s broadly called task-based language learning (TBLL) over the last three years. It’s great. Enthusiastic students who just speak English without being told to. I’m not quite sure what the difference is between TBLL and PBL. Maybe PBL tends to use real-life examples and practical projects more often. And I guess task-based language learning is a broader term.
Here’s a doc file about the differences anyway (just found it and haven’t read it yet):
iravani-toefl.com/download/esp.doc
The only caution I’d give about TBLL, and I think that could extend to PBL for language learning too, is that it’s important to keep a balance between language focus and “fluency” work. Much of the actual work on a task encourages fluency but may not build students’ language knowledge directly. I’ve found that it’s often good to focus on key vocab and structures first before starting a task.
This ties in with cautions about increased cognitive load with PBL:
[quote=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning”]…
Although there have been a number of classroom studies that demonstrated the effectiveness of PBL, other educational researchers have criticized PBL as causing increases in cognitive load. Laboratory studies have shown that active problem solving early in the learning process, is a less effective instructional strategy than studying worked examples (Sweller and Cooper, 1985; Cooper and Sweller, 1987). Certainly active problem solving is useful as learners become more competent, and better able to deal with working memory limitations. But early in the learning process, learners may find it difficult to process a large amount of information in a short amount of time. Thus the rigors of active problem solving may become an issue for novices. Most proponents of PBL deal argue that the scaffolding inherent in PBL helps avoid these issues.
…[/quote]So scaffolding in my view would include work on useful language before getting into the main meat of a task or project.
And of course there should be lots of singing and dancing too… 