Problem Based Learning

Intergrating Problem Based Learning

Problem Based Learning and Hardware Technology Integration

I have been trying for the last four years to get core subject area teachers interested, with varying amounts of success, to implement Problem Based Learning as a partnership between their core subject areas and my business/technology courses. I believe that we must move away from teaching students this is how a piece of software works to this is how to use the software to solve a problem. Issues that have impeded this integration are hardware not available in the core classrooms, and teacher turn around.

Hardware in the core classrooms has been an issue because some classrooms have had no computer hardware in their classroom to other cases where there might be one computer for the whole classroom to share. We have been tackling this issue each year through grants and Parent Teacher Association funds to buy new computers and upgrade older hardware. We now have at least two computers, usually three, in each classroom and a two wireless computer carts with 20 work stations each.

Teacher turn over is another factor impedes technology integration. If your school has a high turn over rate of teachers year to year the new teachers are overwhelmed with just getting used to the curriculum and the students and do not have the time to try and partner with the technology department for project work. This has been an ongoing problem for me but this year I have been lucky enough to have synergy with the Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, and Science departments.  For example every year we have a Johnston County Tech Fair that all schools in the county are encouraged to participate in. This year I am partnering with social studies to enter a project based on North Carolina facts. The students will use Micro Soft Word for written work, Access to build a database on North Carolina Facts, Excel to show differences between cities such as growth and industry, and Hyper Studio to package the presentation.

I see us moving more and more to electronic testing (8^th grade computer tests, possible math EOG) and the more we can prepare teachers and students now on the use of hardware the more successful we will be in these integrations. For example I taught a workshop this in ClassScapes which is an electronic math test and taking software supported by NCSU. This software is tied to the Standard Course of Study and reports back on the detailed level on how well the students are mastering the skill and on how well the teacher is teaching the objective. Training of teachers has to be an ongoing process to build their confidence to use technology and to not fear the movement to a true electronic problem based learning classroom.

 Reference

Sara M. Sage

Spring 2003: volume 35 number 3

Posted at 02:15PM Sep 24, 2006 by LASKIN, RICHARD in General  |  Comments[0]