Six Outcomes – One (BIG) Assignment:
A Problem-Based Learning Approach
to Improving Information Fluency
Dr. Karen Ann Tarnoff
Assistant Dean for Assurance of Learning and Assessment
College of Business and Technology
The Scenario
– Based on experience in class:
• HR majors do very well solving structured problems,
BUT struggle solving unstructured/ambiguous
problems.
• HR majors are very adept at applying templates and
adapting processes, BUT struggle creating complex
systems/processes from scratch.
– Reality:
• HR managers are rarely faced with highly structured
problems that are easily solved with rote solutions.
– Challenge:
• How do we teach our students this amorphous skill?
Planning and Staffing – MGMT 4560
• Senior-level course for HR majors in the BBA program
• Course learning objectives:
– Prepare, as part of a team, a staffing manual including job
analysis and full recruiting and selection processes; and
– Contribute to the development of the written
communication, teamwork, and critical thinking
competencies as well as discipline-specific knowledge
(i.e., knowledge about HRM) in accordance with the BBA
program’s learning objectives for all undergraduate
business students.
•
An Intriguing Idea
• “Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered
pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through
the experience of problem solving. Students learn both
thinking strategies (e.g., information fluency) and domain
knowledge.”
• “The goals of PBL are to help students develop flexible
knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed
learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic
motivation.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning
An Intriguing Idea
• The faculty member serves as a facilitator of learning
rather than as the “sage on the stage”
• Faculty:
– Support
– Guide
– Model
– Question
– Encourage
– Monitor learning process
– Set standards for learning and evaluation criteria
Reengineering a Project Using PBL
to focus on Information Fluency
• Project: Teams create a complete staffing manual for a
position of their choosing in a Fortune 100 company
• Round one – provide a template for the manual’s contents
• Round two – task students with drafting manual from scratch
and guide students week by week
• Round three – provide a rubric at the beginning of the
semester for the evaluation of the manual’s contents
• A HA! Round four – have the students create the rubric
(week by week) for the evaluation of the manual’s contents
Steps
• Faculty develops complete rubric capturing content
knowledge to be covered – don’t share with students
• Assign major project and explain that a rubric will be used to
grade
• Provide the rubric’s first section to guide students
• Warn students that they will be outside their comfort zone
• Require students/teams to contribute a prescribed number of
rubric items each class/week instructing them to identify
major content items they should cover in the project and on
which they want to be graded. Award points for weekly
contributions.
Steps
• Have students/teams post items to D2L discussion board
weekly
• Set aside 5-10 minutes each class to share items and
discuss
• Use instructor’s rubric to supplement students’ weekly
contributions
• Compile contributions and post weekly to D2L in rubric
format
• Have students/teams evaluate each others work using rubric
in advance of submission
• Use rubric to grade and provide feedback to students
PBL, a Rubric and
Information Fluency
• Questioning – identifying rubric items requires students to
discover what they need to learn
• Seeking – finding information to address rubric dimensions
identified by class and to include in manual
• Evaluating – determining what information from various
sources should be included in the manual
• Using – putting the information discovered into a logical
sequence of ideas and addressing all items in rubric
• Communicating – writing the manual in a professional format
for use by HR managers
• Recognizing – appropriately citing sources utilized
Some PBL Resources
•
•
•
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http://www.pbl.uci.edu/whatispbl.html
http://www.studygs.net/pbl.htm
http://online.sfsu.edu/rpurser/revised/pages/problem.htm
http://www.learning-theories.com/problem-based-learningpbl.html
• http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ijpbl/