Problem-Based Curriculum

Problem-based curriculum is designed to experientially engage students in processes of inquiry into complex problems of significance and relevance to their lives and learning. It is intended to challenge students to pursue authentic questions, wonders, and uncertainties in a focused way, which enables them to construct, deepen, and extend their knowledge and understanding. Problem-based curriculum steps away from typical notions of curriculum in that it positions students as stakeholders, and as knowers, in both teaching and learning processes. It organizes curriculum in holistic ways, around problems that are messy and multiple, foregrounding the development of processes of learning, attitudes, and dispositions as well as the acquisition of content knowledge.

The four curricular commonplaces conceptualized by Joseph Schwabteacher, subject matter, student, and milieuhelp make visible the structure and interaction within a problem-based curriculum. The teacher examines subject matter to determine what big ideas are central to one or more disciplines, have the potential to fascinate students, will connect to students and their lives in a variety of ways, and have enough richness and tension to hold students' curiosity for an extended period of investigation. Examples of big ideas might include such concepts as pressure and force, identity, and freedom and conflict. Using situations [Page 686]arising in local contexts and the lived experiences of students, the teacher, parents, family, and community members, the teacher then shapes a particular problem-based curricular unit. Defined learning outcomes and curricular standards are pursued within this unit through student-initiated and choice-driven inquiries.

Problem-based curriculum begins with an initial experience in which students are challenged with a problematic situation, one that prompts their thinking and causes them to ask a multitude of questions. It then leads to a series of central experiences in which students decide what is personally meaningful to them, plan their inquiries, engage in their explorations, compile their information, think hard about their findings, and determine what they have learned in relation to the problem they first posed. Throughout this central time, the teacher is an active facilitator of student inquiries, leading discussions; teaching problem-solving, thinking strategies, or process skills; providing responses; asking probing questions; directing students to resources; and teaching or supporting group and collaborative skills. Rather than being preplanned, the teaching is responsive and contextual, sometimes done individually, at other times in small groups or with the whole class. Problem-based curriculum concludes with a culminating experience in which students share their inquiries with one another and, typically, with a broader audience of vested interest.

Thoughtful presentation of the problem is critical to problem-based curriculum. Problems must be complex enough that there is a need to seek many perspectives on the issues, to engage in collaborative inquiry, and to generate multiple possible solutions. The problems have an authenticity that holds meaning for the students, enables them to assume ownership of the problems, and results in findings of significance in the broader context of their lives. Problems must invite a deep approach to learningto inquiry, thinking, and reflection which leads to shifts or changes in students' knowledge. At the same time, they leave room for students to discover that knowledge is tentative, always reflective of a moment in time, and open to continued shifts and changes. Rich problems invoke in students both the motivation and the ability to think in integrated and integrative ways with a high degree of sophistication.

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