What is Problem-Based Learning?
Problem-Based Learning is an approach for teaching interdisciplinary studies that encourages active student participation. One of the great problems new researchers face in interdisciplinary studies is how to teach people to reach across disciplines and boundaries in new ways. Problem-based learning argues that the best way to teach people to do this is to give them the hands-on experience of being a researcher, rather than dogmatically telling people how to be creative thinkers.
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Sample PBL Classes: The Promised Land (Spring 2004), Apocalypse in Colonial New England (Spring 2001)
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Problem Based Learning in the American Studies Classroom, (Proceedings from the 3rd Asia Pacific Conference on Problem Based Learning, Dec. 2001)
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Laura Leibman, "Problem-Based Learning Projects," Instructor's Guide: American Passages. NY: WW Norton, 2003: xxx-xxxii
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PBL Projects from American Passages available online: [Unit1] [Unit 2] [Unit 3] [Unit 4] [Unit 5] [Unit 6] [Unit 7] [Unit 8] [Unit 9] [Unit 10] [Unit 11] [Unit 12] [Unit 13] [Unit 14] [Unit 15] [Unit 16]
Learn more about my teaching goals and methods in my Statement of Teaching Philosophy or by seeing my complete list of courses with links to syllabi.