Karen O’Rourke
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
I keep hearing voices........I hope I’m MAD!
May 2009
A starting point....enquiry-based
learning
EBL represents a shift away from passive
methods, which involve the transmission
of knowledge to students, to more
facilitative teaching methods through
which students are expected to construct
their own knowledge and understanding
by engaging in supported processes of
enquiry
Kahn and O’Rourke, Guide to Enquiry-Based
Learning, www.heacademy.ac.uk
• Enquiry Based Learning is a natural form
of learning, borne out of our innate sense
of curiosity and desire to understand
• It is generically applicable, and has grown
from modelling learning in a number of
subjects
EBL
• Interlock skills with disciplinary content
• Values performance and process as well as product
• Values existing knowledge and experience
• Enhances self-awareness and reflection (PDP and CPD)
• Encourages feedback
What is problem-based learning?
The principal idea behind PBL is….that the starting point
for learning should be a problem, a query or a puzzle
that the learner wishes to solve
(David Boud, 1985)
Some key characteristics....
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Learning driven by a process of enquiry or investigation
Involves complex, intriguing, authentic, stimuli
Student (or learner) centred
Demands action
Develops skills
Connects theory and practice
De-mystifies research
Supported /supportive process
Encourages feedback
Social
Enjoyable
‘….leaving behind the dusty lecture
halls, to find out about our
subject….done through interaction with
other students and academics, and
evidence found in places – books, the
internet, and the big wide world itself’
What we expect from students….
• Accept responsibility for their
learning
• Work as a team
• Identify own learning goals
• Determine a plan of activity and
negotiate responsibility for the
work
• Share findings and collate
research
• Complete the task to deadline
• Undertake assessment activities
• Give and receive feedback
Learner Centred....
PBL is morally defensible in that it pays due
respect to both student and teacher as persons
with knowledge, understanding, feelings and
interests who come together in a shared
educational process.
Margetson, D., The Challenge of Problem-Based Learning,
Boud and Feletti, Eds, (Kogan Page) 1997
Let’s start with the students....
In the first couple of weeks I was worried, I
was thinking ‘this isn’t for me, I’m not
going to learn anything’. I thought the
course would be quite woolly, I couldn’t
see how it was going to work
I was surprised there weren’t any set texts.
It’s much more left up to us
A lot of people were nervous because it was
something new and we didn’t know what was
going to happen
I think if I had come in the first year and
been dropped into this situation, I would
have freaked out. I quite liked being
anonymous in the first year
If I had come to an Open Day
and was told that I would have
to do a research project I
would be out the door!
We tried to allocate roles - chair, scribe,
etc – but I thought that was too rigid and
could be detrimental
In terms of time spent it has far exceeded
my other courses and I, at first, resented
the degree to which it occupied me
It may be naive but I didn’t
expect to meet selfish and
unmotivated people on my
course
I have friends who have been forced to do
group work and have been assigned
groups and they go and no-one else turns
up or some people do all the work and
others don’t contribute
The written work counts for 40% - you can take it as an
essay or a report. I’m not going anywhere near a report
because that would be scary because you don’t know
what is meant by report and you’re not going to take a
risk in your final year to write a report properly
We’d expect the lecturer to tell us exactly what
to do, expect loads of direction
We are the little people, we just sit and listen
The tutor voice
The centre of the teaching and learning
process must become the student. In the
words of Heidegger, “the teacher is ahead
of his apprentices in this alone, that he has
still far more to learn than they....he has to
learn to let them learn”.
(Prof Lewis Elton, THES, 21 July 2000)
Of the best leader, when the job
is done, the people say ‘we did it
ourselves’
Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching
Our group really felt proud of the way we had
taught ourselves
Our task is to make ourselves not needed!
Prof Kirsti Lonka, Tampere, 2009
All of us hold the key to loads of
information. We are all sources of
information as much as the
bookshelves and the teacher.
The students just don’t get it! It’s all going wrong!
You can come and go as you please. It means that
because there is such a casual feeling towards it, [PBL]
it lends itself to people just chatting about this, that and
the other. And that dynamic is really important
The nature of the [PBL] course means that the tutor has
to be accessible because the students become actively
involved in the problems and the groups take on a life
outside the class
But I need to get all the content into the
students.... the ‘bulimic’ approach....?
The content from this course has really stuck in
– long term! A lot of the courses you can do
very little all year and then cram for two weeks.
In this course, because it was problem-based
you had to plan and you learned so much
PBL encourages students to explore new,
untouched areas, this would not happen in a
traditional tutor-led course, where you are
encouraged to follow the path/spoonfeeding of
the tutor
We did a reflection on how we had come
together to do our last presentation and we were
absolutely astounded at how much we had
learnt, about the problem and about group skills
Education is not the filling of a
pail, but the lighting of a fire
W B Yeats
What happens when EBL students pose a
problem!
The voice of the Researcher
….five other people researching a topic and
sharing information has led to a wider
breadth of knowledge than I have
previously experienced….
Research
I originally thought research was a big thing to do, it
required lots of people and money. I thought it was
scientists and stuff. I know it’s not now. I know I can do
it. It’s about being critical, looking at what other people
have done, then finding a methodology and asking
questions.
First Year Student, Early Childhood Studies,
Northumbria University, UK
Research
I soon learned that it did not require a great brain to
do original research. One must be highly
motivated, exercise good judgement, have
intelligence, imagination, determination and a little
luck. One of the most important qualities in doing
research, I found, was to ask the right questions at
the right time.
Julius Axelrod (Nobel prize winning scientist)
Let’s hear it for the Educational Developer!
It is no surprise that educational developer
roles are often undertaken by individuals
who have not had a traditional academic
pathway. As a result, educational
developers are often accustomed to and
adept at adaptation.
(Higgs, B. And McCarthy, M., eds The Changing Roles of Teachers and
Learners in Higher Education in Ireland: an introduction, NAIRTL 2008)
Educational Development – it’s a tough job!
Prof Kirsti Lonka, Tampere, April 2009
Using my language!
The last few weeks I’ve had a taste of proper EBL action, helping out with a
Modern Languages session and sitting in on a Geography focus group (which
made me feel a lot better about focus groups in general as it was not nearly as
scary as I had imagined!).
The last week I’ve been concentrating on putting together an overview of EBL
style study in Undergraduate English and American studies, looking at course
outlines that might involve EBL but not yet recognise it as such. That’s finished
now so hopefully, with Julia, we can start working out who might be interested in
acknowledging EBL elements on their courses. I think the main conclusions so
far have been that people are already including EBL on their course….they just
don’t know it yet! During the next few weeks I’m going to start doing the same
thing for Postgraduate studies too.
This Friday, Jamie and I are going to the first Theology meeting, to make our
faces known and then I anticipate an exciting weekend of endless reading!
Hope everyone is getting along great!
Using my language!
The last few weeks I’ve had a taste of proper EBL action, helping out with a
Modern Languages session and sitting in on a Geography focus group (which
made me feel a lot better about focus groups in general as it was not nearly as
scary as I had imagined!). The last week I’ve been concentrating on putting
together an overview of EBL- style study in Undergraduate English and
American studies, looking at course outlines that might involve EBL but not yet
recognise it as such. That’s finished now so hopefully, with Julia, we can start
working out who might be interested in acknowledging EBL elements on their
courses. I think the main conclusions so far have been that people are already
including EBL on their course….they just don’t know it yet! During the next few
weeks I’m going to start doing the same thing for Postgraduate studies too. This
Friday, Jamie and I are going to the first Theology meeting, to make our faces
known and then I anticipate an exciting weekend of endless reading!
Hope everyone is getting along great!
(taken from an undergraduate student blog)
...and I thought I was the enthusiastic multi-tasker!
Last friday i met up with Sally Freeman in pharmacy to discuss how
the medicinal chemistry project funded by CEEBL last year is
developing. It would appear that this course has now been embedded
into the programme and is now worth 80% of the module ( the other
20% being practical work).Therefore the module is now assessed
purely through EBL, and not through examination. I will be working on
this project again this year and hope to put a draft together of a paper
to go into Pharmacy Education over the next few weeks.There may
also be the possibilty of presenting a poster on the project at the
RPSGB conference. Meanwhile,I met with Liz Theaker this afternoon
and I will be running some focus groups over the next few weeks to
review how the new curriculum is being recieved in dentistry.
I am also planning to redesign the personal development records
within pharmacy following on from our workshop on the 22nd
November. I have found an expert in the field of continuing
professional development and am meeting with her next monday.
Hopefully we will be able to come up with some solutions to make it
more student friendly and also correlate more with the records we will
have to keep when we are practicing pharmacists.
Different undergraduate student, same blog!
The student voice – keeps coming through!
•
As the group gets together, friendships develop and students get to know
one another better. Not only have we been able to provide academic
support to each other, we have begun to socialise outside the classroom
•
I felt as if I was at UNIVERSITY rather than at school. You feel like you’re
SUPPOSED to be here
•
It [learning] means more than books – it really demonstrates that there is
respect and trust both ways
•
I was taking it in because I was interested in it and it wasn’t just reading for
the exam. It was work I wanted to do because I chose to do it
•
We’re almost learning by accident, it’s like intravenous.
• You go out of a PBL with your head buzzing, rather than
feeling you’ve just passively sat there
• The discussions....it’s amazing! Hearing all the different
viewpoints....seeing how things develop
• When you see someone else is on the same track and
you’re all learning the same thing, that can give you a big
confidence boost, it pushes you a bit more because you
want your work to be just as good as theirs
• You have responsibility to the whole group, not just
yourself, everyone has to pull together
Employability
• Team working and leadership
• Inter-personal skills
– Negotiation and persuasion
– Decision making
– Handling conflict
– Sharing
• Communication skills
– Presentation, explaining, questioning
– Networking
• Managing projects and meetings
• Evaluation, judgement, appraisal
• Entrepreneurship, ‘intrapreneurship’ and
social enterprise
attitudes are important to
employers….
Interested, enthusiastic and flexible
graduate….and….keen, motivated and ambitious
individuals….
are frequently encountered phrases and the words
dedicated
passionate
self-starter
energetic
systematic
committed
abound
BioSciences Subject Centre Newsletter
2007 www.heacademy.ac.uk
Am I MAD?
‘Evaluating Learning Change’, Hutchings, B.
and O’Rourke, K.
‘Guide to Enquiry-Based Learning’, Kahn,P.
and O’Rourke, K.
www.manchester.ac.uk/ceebl
Karen O’Rourke
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Leeds Metropolitan University
k.orourke@leedsmet.ac.uk
May 2009