Reflections: Educational Psychology Problem-based Learning

1.  How has the problem-based learning experience changed:

•      the way you learn?

•       the way you solve problems?

•       your understanding of what makes group learning effective?

 During the course of my professional career, I have had experiences similar to the problem-based learning experience, where we looked at problems and attempted to reach suitable solutions, thereby gaining new knowledge of the issue at hand. However, those experiences were steeped in real world context. While I do not think that this experience has changed the way I learn, I think that the experience does help in making the theories of educational psychology more understandable and relevant. It demonstrated how these theories can be applied in the real world context and how they act as a guide to understand and decipher problems one may encounter in the classroom or school. Sadly, this is not a perfect world, and theories remain as just that, theories. With all good intentions, theory-based solutions offer possible, yet unrealistic ways of how problems can be solved. However, in reality, these solutions are not practical, and their executions near to impossible.

While there was much scaffolding on the PBL Google site, the instructions and required tasks were too detailed, and as a result, created confusion as to the requirements and expectations. Templates were helpful as a guide, but the deliverables expected were repetitive, as they required similar information to be presented in different formats. Objectives of the problem-based learning experience were not clear, and continued to be unclear for much of the process.

I think that group learning is effective, but only if every member plays their part to contribute and share. Each member is a part of a bigger whole, and if everyone meets the deliverables, individually and as a group, each person will benefit tremendously from group learning. It is also vital that each member becomes familiar, if not experts, with the topic they are responsible for researching on, so that everyone can benefit from sharing when the group convenes, and learning becomes more effective and meaningful.

2.  How has the Problem-based learning experience nurtured your competencies as a beginning teacher?

This experience makes me aware that as a beginning teacher, I need to be sensitive to a child’s personal, social and cognitive development, and that these are affected by the child’s family and social background and interactions. Every child wants to learn, and if he or she behaves in a certain way that I do not find acceptable, I should not jump to assumptions but instead understand that his behaviour could be a result of his physical and social environments. I also realise that every kind of interaction that a child has has a potential to affect his or her sense of learning, even my words and actions or interactions with the child’s parents.

3. After having engaged with the content of Educational Psychology, what is your present belief about how students learn best?

I find the theories of Educational Psychology very interesting, and find that they can act as guidelines for me to understand my students’ learning and behaviours. However, they remain as just that, guidelines. Every student learns differently and come from different backgrounds with different family, social and physical influences. Students can learn best when a teacher takes into account all these differences and makes attempts to engage them meaningfully and purposefully.