Our use of small group, self-directed PBL

Our experience has been with small group, self-directed, self-assessed PBL in tutorless groups. In the chemical engineering program, we use PBL as part of two courses: one topic or problem in a junior level course; and five topics in a senior level course (Woods, 1991).

The students concurrently are taking five to seven required courses presented in the conventional format. Both PBL courses have about 30 to 50 students with one instructor. Hence, we use five to ten tutorless groups with five students per group. Before the students they have received about 50 hours of workshop style training in the processing skills.

The outcomes for the PBL activity are the Chemical Engineering subject knowledge (process safety and engineering economics), lifetime learning skills and chairperson skills. Each problem is studied for about one week.

Before the first PBL activity, the students have workshops introducing them to this PBL approach to learning and workshops on managing change. The students are required to submit journal reports frequently that make explicit their progress and activities within the PBL tutorless groups.

The elaboration is done by having three meetings: a goals meeting, a teach meeting and an elaboration/feedback meeting. Student-generated learning issues are validated by the instructor during the goals meeting. The students’ assessment of the partial PBL learning environment, as measured by the Course Perceptions Questionnaire (Knapper, 1994 and Ramsden, 1983), is d= +1 more positive than the responses from a control group of engineering students in a conventional program (N=47).

At McMaster University, the theme school program was created. This is a program for interdisciplinary learning that students from all disciplines may elect to take on overload.

Based on the research expertise at McMaster, one of the theme schools is on new materials and their impact on society. This school has five 3-credit courses, three 2-credit seminar courses and two 6-credit research internships. Enrolment is limited and by application. About 35 students were admitted in both the first and second year since it was started. Students are from English, biology, physical education, nursing chemistry, mathematics and engineering.

The 3-credit courses use the small group self-directed problem-based format. For each course has two instructors and 1 teaching assistant. The first course is sophomore level. In each 13-week course the tutorless student groups handle 2 to 3 cases or problems. Concurrently they are taking 5 to 7 required courses in their major area. Except for the nursing program, all the other courses the students take are presented in the conventional lecture format. The students have received no formal training in the processing skills before they enrolled in the theme school.

Our approach has been to develop these skills concurrently. We have five explicit, 1½ hour workshops that are given during the second semester of their sophomore year. The topics are understanding PBL and its expectations, managing change, problem solving, group skills and self-directed-interdependent small group learning.

The student evaluations of the program have identified the importance of these explicit workshops and have recommended that these be given before the students encounter their first case problem. Currently, this program does not explicitly include the development of processing skills as valued outcomes nor are these skills formally assessed. I believe that the program would be strengthened if it did.

The students are not required to do extensive journal writing. However, their written reports must demonstrate that they have synthesized information and material learned from other members of their group. Student’s assessment of the PBL learning environment in the Theme school, as measured by the Course Perceptions Questionnaire is d = +2 more positive than their assessment of their “home” departments. Their responses for their home department were consistent with the responses from a control group of students in a conventional program that has enrolment limited and is by application.

In Civil Engineering, Fred Hall uses small group, self-directed, self-assessed PBL in a junior level course; in Geography, Caroline Eyles and Fred Hall use this approach for a senior level project course.

In summary, these are examples of the use of small group self-directed PBL where tutorless groups of five to six students function effectively. The class sizes are in the range 30 to 50 with one or two instructors. The students concurrently take conventional courses. In these examples, the students work in tutorless groups of about 5 to 6 students.

References

Knapper, C. (1994) Instructional Development Center, Queen’s University, personal communication of the short CPQ version used in the paper D. Bertrand and C. Knapper (1993) “Contextual Influences on Student’s Approaches toLearning in Three Academic Departments”, Queens University, Kingston ON.

Ramsden, P. (1983) “The Lancaster Approaches to Studying and Course Perceptions Questionnaires: Lecturer’s Handbook,” Educational Methods Unit, Oxford Polytechnic, Oxford, OX3 0BP

Woods, D.R. (1991) “Issues in Implementation in an Otherwise Conventional Programme”, Chapter 12 in “The Challenges of Problem-based Learning” D. Boud and G. Feletti, ed., Kogan Page, London, 122-129.

One of the first videos on McMaster Problem Solving using Problem Based Learning methods.

The McMaster Problem Solving (MPS) Program – Dr. Don Woods provides an outline of this program with many live links to lessons constructed to provide problem solving skills.

The MPS program and evaluation of its effectiveness

Condolences Received from Chemical Engineering Chairs, Colleagues and Friends on the news of Don Woods sudden passing

The whole chemical engineering community is mourning the passing away of Don Woods. Don has been a source of inspiration not only for chemical engineering professors but to educators in a wide range of disciplines across universities worldwide using his pioneering problem based solving ideas, concepts and techniques. With warm regards,

Michel Prof. Michel Perrier, ing., Ph.D., MACG, D.h.c. Directeur Département de génie chimique École Polytechnique

 This is very sad news. Don was such a wonderful, positive and enthusiastic person, and made such an impact in engineering education.
Please extend our deepest sympathies to his family, and to his colleagues and friends, on behalf of the Chemical Engineering department at Queen’s.Don was an alumnus of Queen’s, and I can still remember him bounding – yes, bounding – up the stairs for his 50th reunion in 2007. One of Don’s classmates was the first woman to graduate in chemical engineering from Queen’s. One of the primary instructors at that time had been quite sexist and unwelcoming to her, and Don was still seething about it 50 years later. Don cared very much about engineering, education and people.

A wonderful man.

James McLellan

Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Academic Director, Queen’s Innovation Connector

So sad to hear about Don’s sudden passing. Canada lost a pioneer and an innovator in education methods. There are very few who have contributed so much to Chemical engineering education. I have very nice memory of Don when he visited our Department several years ago. I always enjoy reading/referring his books on design and rule of thumbs. It is a great loss for all but above all for his family. My sincere condolences to Don’s family. Regards Peter

Peter Engelzos, UBC

I am very sad to her of Don’s passing. He was a great man, a great mentor and among, if not the, greatest engineering educator in Canada. Please pass our condolences to his family. On behalf of University of Calgary’s Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering.

Best regards,

U.T. U. Sundararaj, Professor and Head Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering University of Calgary

Very sad news indeed. He was the Chemical Engineering educator par excellence not only in Canada but worldwide. My condolences to you, your Department and his family.

Dimitrios Berk, McGill University

Colleagues

As you can see from the note from the Chair of McMaster Chem Eng, below, Professor Don Woods passed away this past weekend. As many of you know, Don was a Chemical Engineering Professor at McMaster who had a significant impact on engineering education. Though I didn’t know him well, I knew of him by reputation and by a few memorable talks I saw and through the work of others who worked with Don (e.g. Kim Woodhouse, now Dean at Queens). I still recall Don giving a seminar in our Department many (likely more than 15) years ago about problem-based learning. Many years before that he had taken his sabbatical and spent it like a student, attending classes in the chem eng curriculum. What a radical idea! One of his discoveries was that, though we frequently herald problem solving as a key skill that our students learn, he found that we don’t in fact teach it. This lead him to be a pioneer in problem-based learning as a way of teaching engineering. In my likely overly simplistic view, it’s about putting the problem first, then having students discover (with ‘coaching’) what principles, information, etc. you need to solve it. That’s as opposed to the more conventional approach where we teach principles and then give out problems that require the principles we just taught. Our conventional approach likely allows us to cover more material but at the expense of depth and what ‘sticks’ (i.e. becomes more intuitive) long term (less=more). Don’s findings led to significant changes in the curriculum at McMaster, with several problem-based courses. His papers, presentations and people he interacted with also impacted the engineering community well beyond McMaster. For my part, though I still teach mostly in the conventional way, I do use a problem-based approach (my version of it anyway) as well. Don also spoke of the importance of taking short ‘breaks’ from lecture about every 15 or 20 minutes to keep students engaged and he used this to great effect in his own talk…something I also try to use. His approach is also an inspiration to the potential great value of labs where we also actively think and do…and hence much value in the Unit Ops Renovation as part of our Advancement campaign. A great Canadian Engineering educator who will be missed.

Grant Allen, University of Toronto

I considered Don a true friend , We worked off and on together for 20+ years. To my surprise Don attended my Fathers Visitation a few years ago and he talked to my Sons and Daughter. When Don left, my kids came to me and said he knew what sports they were involved in and their work. They said “what a real nice guy” and that I was lucky to work with such people. He was the spokes person for my departmental retirement and wow he certainly gave me a send off. It was an honour and privileged to say we knew him. Val, Gord, Wayne, Maxine and Neil

Gordon Slater, Port Dover, Ontario