Paper: Problem-based learning for foundation computer science courses

Posted on January 1st, 2004 by Sacha Chua

http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~judy/PBL/tr_cse_pbl99.pdf

The foundation courses in computer science pose
particular challenges for teacher and learner alike. This paper
describes some of these challenges and how we have designed
problem-based learning (PBL) courses to address them. We discuss the
particular problems we were keen to overcome: the purely technical
focus of many courses; the problems of individual learning and the
need to establish foundations in a range of areas which are important
for computer science graduates. We then outline our course design,
showing how we have created problem-based learning courses.

The paper reports our evaluation of the approach. This has two parts:
assessment of a trial, with a three-year longitudinal follow-up of the
students; reports of student learning improve-ment after we had become
experienced in full implementation of PBL.

We conclude with a summary of our experience over three years of PBL
teaching and discuss some of the pragmatic issues around introducing
the radical change in teaching, maintaining staff support, and
continuing refinement of our PBL teaching. We also discuss some of our
approaches to the commonly acknowledged challenges of PBL
teaching.

Hmmm. Problem-based learning is about working on large, real-world
problems, not just the toy exercises we do in class. Must check out
footnote 4. Teacher as facilitator – precisely! I like the focus on
problem-solving skills. Hey, they use Blue too. I so agree with these
objectives. I like how the students plan their study and choose the
exercises. I want to learn how to do research like this.

Footnote 4: D. Boud and G. Feletti. The Challenge of Problem Based
Learning. Kogan Page, 1991.

http://www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~judy/PBL/tr_cse_pbl99.pdf

More posts about: Uncategorized // Add Comment »

Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/1557

On This Day...

2013: Looking back and looking forward — Have you ever felt unsure about whether you’re moving forward or where the time went? A friend called me up [...]
2012: Weekly review: Week ending December 30, 2011 — Lots of progress on Quantified Awesome thanks to last week’s long weekend. Looking forward to building more this long weekend. [...]
2011: Weekly review: Week ending December 31, 2010 — From last week’s plans Work [X] Work on Project M: Make sure users have permissions to do things [...]
2010: On the practice of a weekly review — A weekly review is an excellent idea. Here are some of the reasons why I do it: Track and celebrate accomplishments. [...]
2009: Homebody — Fun with friends is fine and dandy; chefs and waiters, pretty handy; But it’s clear in every case that home remains [...]
2009: Happiness and cats — Tania Samsonova sent me a link to this geeky-and-oh-so-true comic: Schrödinger’s (emotional) Miscalculation – Part 3. Tania, you rock! =D
2008: Working on section on Org and projects — Just to say that I’m alive and writing. I’m at 1400 words or so for the section on Org and [...]
2007: Big, hairy, audacious goal — 2My Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal for the next eight months is to help huge companies imagine how they can help people [...]
2007: My books are balanced — I have to confess a certain delight in knowing that my books are balanced and that I have a full year [...]
2007: Making things happen — My dad was telling all sorts of crazy stories at the breakfast table earlier. It’s a good thing my mom reminded [...]
2007: Yay me! — I gave up watching New Year fireworks for the thrill of actually keeping a not-quite-New-Year goal of waking up before 7:30 [...]
2004: On losing my data — Insightful post, then X-Windows died horribly. Agh! No auto-save! Yes, yes, I know, it doesn’t have season words or the wordplay I so [...]
2004: Considering part-time — Blast. My really long blog post disappeared after stuff crashed. In brief: I’m thinking of teaching part-time instead of full-time. I want [...]
2004: Ackpth, lost mail — <sigh> Whoops.
2004: Consolidating archives — tla make-archive -l sacha@free.net.ph--main ~/notebook/arch tla my-default-archive sacha@free.net.ph--main tla archive-setup emacs-wiki--sacha--1.0 tla tag arch@repose.cx--03/emacs-wiki--dev--1.0 emacs-wiki--sacha--1.0 tla cacherev emacs-wiki--sacha--1.0 tla get emacs-wiki--sacha--1.0 emacs-wiki
2004: LDAP admin — -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) hQEOAyM0ahSC/SeUEAQAiUiEncXWQems/3SY+A5JlHOP0F8sHJk4/S1lhSKZKsWD xpjIOFbxpn8rrtprOp9mnc9QMBGzRnnffinx9rbwz4nd0ryxHhuUigZbDDeItoON lMM5GupfkQuP/lJt+BtUxZsze5yj2KcXMDPPQawaM/WVqo01yUDDarVoauO6wtYD /jbZJv24fM4lbDKfzfMEEsw9Ik1wdt/ou5bCfK9OOfLCofV5zV0AuMl0HCpqEN7P 6E2wJRSzSRliG8DXCFcMsjbhWjIzr37x3smsTkHRkY8MPIsT4YGUIxNNlgj5HMMe 74Vvb5keEsM03AD/H9rKWEE2it76aUMmyQLTb7pgvzC50j0BMVBA/8g9CAkBHNie sBC1pYJENkEycwXSHaOv+Z4CbJ9+PNbabI6oUQJ0s21OdsxsEOisPmpxgvbP9Tjx =6lI2 -----END PGP MESSAGE-----
2004: Good night in Dutch — welterusten, or just trusten for short.
2004: Reaction to OnLove — I was recently considering the idea of having a “girlfriend” purely for emotional reasons. i prefer to name it “emotional buffer”. [...]
2004: File-local variables in vim — :help modeline
2004: On days — Only a few hours ago did fireworks light up the sky to celebrate the beginning of a new year, yet now [...]
2004: SIGCSE: The first stop for computer science education research — http://www.acm.org/sigcse/ SIGCSE is the special interest group for computer science education in the Association for Computing Machinery. It regularly organizes conferences and the [...]
2004: Resolutions for 2004 — Speak slower and lower. Check requirements within 3 days. Log all of my expenses in plain text in Emacs so that I [...]
2004: Old computer — I’m having problems with the ADMTek Centaur-P. It’s a tulip card, but for some reason it does not want to be [...]

sacha chua living an awesome life