Topic- Problem based learning, teaching thinking skills.
Introduction
problem based learning is an innovative strategy, by which the learning materials are presented through problematic situations and the learners are motivated and helped to solve these and thus acquire and internalize related knowledge. On the other hand, teaching thinking skills means a set of basic advanced skills and subskills that govern a person's mental process are known as thinking skills.
Presentation.
problem based learning is an innovative learning strategy; by which the learning materials are presented through problematic situations and the learner's are motivated and helped to solve these and acquire and internalize related knowledge. The PBL encourages dealing with meaningful problematic situations, that promote curiosity and the spirit of inquiry among learners. The PBL can also be referred by other names such as project based teaching , Authentic learning and Anchored instruction. The teachers role in PBL is to pose problems to ask reflective questions and to facilitate investigation. The PBL orginated from there roots of inquiry teaching and Guided discovery learning. The purpose of PBL is to help the students master the subject matter through problem solving.
characteristics.
The following are the major characteristics of PBL.
< The problem do not test skills but they assist in the development of the skills themselves.
< PBL is not exclusively meant for the solution of the specific problem being solved but it help to gain additional information through problem solving.
< The students are responsible to solve the problem and the teacher act as the facilitator; motivator and guide.
< Authentic and performance based assessment at the end of instruction is compulsory in PBL.
stages of problem based learning.
There are three distinct phases in a PBL
< stage I. Encounting and defining the problem.
At this stage a very focused problem statement is needed. For Example in Economics class the loss of market share of a particular product can be considered as a problem. Teacher can guide the students to study the situation and hypothesise reasons leading to the problem. Also, they may be encouraged to suggest feasible soluations.
< stage 2. Accessing, evaluating and utilising information.
Atter defining the Problem exactly, and explaring the conditions and reasons leading to the Problem , the start hypothesing soluations, But this might require vast data more than those already available.
< stage 3. Synthesis and Performance
In this stage, students construct a soluation to the problem. The analysis of various aspects related to the data will help them to arrive at a soluation to the problem.
Distinction between PBL and PSM
Problem based learning
< PBL is the process involved in solving a complex problematic situation that warrants more effort and time.
< Greater possibility of practical experience.
< Having wide scope
< significance to the process.
problem solving method
<problem solving method is a method of teaching, which involves the soluation of a simple task
< Lesser possibility for practical experience.
< Having narrow scope
< significance to the product.
Teaching Thinking skills...
The set of basic advanced Skills and Sub Skills that govern a person's mental process are known as thinking skills. These skills consist of knowledge dispositions and cognitive and metacognitive operations. Meta-cognition is the process of planning, assessing and monitoring one's own thinking. Thinking skills indicate content free open ended, sequential cognitive process that allows students to transform information in a strategic manner. Comparing, classifying, contrasting, summarising, inferring, identifying information, generalising, planning, hypothesis, predicting etc. can be considered as the elements of thinking skills. When we can provide students with oppourtunity to use and practice these basic skills.
Principles of teaching thinking skills.
Following are the major principles involved in the teaching of thinking skills.
< Target the specific thinking skill involved and teach these intensively.
< As thinking skills are abstract, help the students to understand them by using concrete examples.
< Explain when and where to use different thinking skills.
< Encourage learner's to use thinking skills throughout the curriculum transaction process and help students to apply these in various subject areas.
< Motivate students to apply thinking skills on all situations involving learning.
How to teach thinking skills
In order to develop thinking skill among the learner's, we need to initiate them the principles and practices for developing reflective thinking and also train them to develop their own thinking skills. A model for imparting thinking skill is given below.
phase I. Presentation of the lesson.
Teacher can present the topic to the students posing the problematic situations involved. While presenting the topic the teacher should ensure active participation of each student mostly by posing throught provoking analytical questions and by making him closely observe and analyse the elements of the content.
< phase 2. Developing the lesson.
At this stage teacher presents each aspect of the lesson in a systematic manner through questions and tasks that provoke Scientific thinking among the learners.
< phase 3. Analysing thinking skills.
During this stage the teacher should help the the learner's reflect the style of thinking to which they had been introduced during the previous stage. Metacognition should be attempted.
< phase 4. Motivating the students to foster thinking skills.
Here the teacher scaffolds and students reach their maximum mastery of thinking skills.
< phase 5. Reaching closure
The lesson comes to closure when the content objective is attained and reinforced through the soluation of the problem and its application.
Conclusion
In problem based learning the teacher provide all the learning materials to the students and the learner's are motivated and helped to solve the problem. Here the learner acquire additional informations in the problem solving situation. While; thinking is the manipulation of mental ideas. While; thinking skills are the basic skills which leads the learner for some mental process.
References
commerce Education by Dr. K.Sivarajan and E.k Lal.
