Introduction to Problem-Based Learning : History of PBL

A Brief History of Problem-Based Learning

Educators and philosophers have long understood that consolidation and transfer of learning occurs best when students actively apply what they learn to real-life situations. This understanding is the basis of UC's venerable tradition of cooperative education, and educators' creative efforts to design activities supplementing textbooks, class lectures, and discussions. Unfortunately, it is all too common that even some of the most academically gifted students have difficulty in applying the information that they have absorbed to problems they may encounter as independent professionals. Teaching students how to think and learn independently is crucially important in a technologically sophisticated society where information seems to become obsolete as quickly as it is disseminated.

Problem-based learning is an instructional philosophy and methodology explicitly designed to promote active, self-directed learning and analytical reasoning, communication, and team problem-solving skills. Through tackling carefully crafted, open-ended problem situations, students learn how to define, locate, and digest what they need to know; evaluate diverse sources and units of information for relevance and helpfulness in solving their problem; and work with other students to develop and assess pertinent solutions. Faculty surrender their traditional role of dispensing all that students need to know in favor of facilitating the group's own problem solving.

PBL was originally developed for the training of physicians at McMaster University in Ontario , Canada in the late 1960s. Dr. Howard Barrows left McMaster University in 1981 to develop Southern Illinois University's School of Medicine program. The SIU PBL program was instituted in 1984.

Since that time, PBL has been incorporated into over sixty medical schools and other health-related programs such as nursing, dental and veterinary schools. Moreover, PBL has been adopted by numerous disciplines including business, chemistry, biology, physics, mathematics, education, architecture, law, engineering, social work, history, English and literature, history, and political science.