Newsletter No. 87

CUHK Newsletter No. 87 19th April 1996 3 A Foretaste of Problem-Based Learning: Coping wi th Real World Problems in the Classroom Stanford Professor Conducts Workshop f o r CU Teachers and Students destroyed by an earthquake in California measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale. They were asked to make accommodations for certain factors, such as that Prof. Bridges and his wife may develop health problems as they grow older, and may even end up in wheelchairs; that as diabetes runs in his wife's family, she may one day become blind; that the next major earthquake has been predicted to be 7.5 in magnitude and is to occur within the next 30 years. To design a house like that, the students had to read up literature on ageing and earthquakes, turning to their professor only for guidance and support. Prof. Bridges's supposed housing predicament is typical of the kind of problem used in Problem-Based Learning (PBL), i.e., it is realistic and is one the students are likely to encounter in their future profession. PBL is an instructional strategy which organizes the imparting and learning of knowledge around realistic problems in a special field. In the place of lectures, students work in small groups while the teacher is there to provide or recommend resources they can draw on to solve the problem. To elucidate the various aspects of a problem, materials from different disciplines are used. PBL originated in the field of medical education in the early 1980s. Since then it has been adopted by 27 different disciplines in institutes of higher education in North America, Europe, Australia, and Thailand, both as supplements to and as the basis of courses. It has been used mainly on students training for particular professions, such as architecture, medicine, teaching, engineering, and law. Prof. Bridges was invited by the Teaching Development Unit to conduct a series of introductory PBL workshops for the teaching staff of the University from January to March 1996. In all, seven workshops were run for seven faculties. The workshop quoted at the beginning of the article was specially organized for the Department of Architecture at the request of its chair. Three additional workshops were conducted in March to help teaching staff draft problems and to conduct a limited field test of PBL in the future. According to Prof. Bridges, much ink has been spilt on PBL in the West. Although its outcome and effectiveness haven't been studied in the context of Asian culture, new ground is being broken. During his visit, Prof. Bridges adopted the PBL approach in a Master of Education course he co-taught with Prof. Benjamin Chan and Prof. Allen Walker, entitled 'Organizational Change and Development in Education'. Based on the observations from the course, the three are now preparing an article for publication. Research has shown that students taught by PBL are more highly motivated and enjoy their education much more than students taught by the lecture method. Prof. Bridges believes PBL is more effective in motivating students precisely because it makes no assumption that people are motivated or have to be so to profit from it. On the contrary, it will be their source of motivation. From his experience with the M.Ed, and the architecture students, Prof. Bridges observes that the students' reaction to PBL, their behaviour and performance are virtually identical to those of his students in the United States. They all displayed much enthusiasm for what they were doing and thought the approach 'realistic, meaningful, and worthwhile'. Prof. Bridges however added that the architecture students seemed to resist working as a team. This he attributes to their lack of experience in doing group work throughout the previous years of their education, and their preference for evaluation based on individual performance. Many teachers who attended the workshops found PBL an inspiring teaching strategy. Prof. Teresa Siu, coordinator of the Teaching Development Unit, says the unit is planning tentatively to show the materials and videos of the PBL workshops to faculty deans, and discuss with them as well as other interested teaching staff the possibilities of its adoption. Prof. Siu stresses though that this will only take place in mid-May after the exams. The Teaching Development Unit also intends to invite Prof. Philip Hallenger, a former student of Prof. Bridges, to conduct further workshops at the University this Christmas or next spring. Piera Chen Top: The Douglas bags in the exercise physiology laboratory Left: The rowing ergometer and other measuring instruments in the sports psychology laboratory Below: Equipment in the biomechanics laboratory Dr. Paul Robinson Teaching and Learning Infested with Language Problems Prior to coming to Hong Kong, Dr. Robinson has worked in the UK, Canada, Ireland and Singapore. In his opinion, the most dedicated students are those in Singapore, who incidentally are far more fluent in English than students in Hong Kong. One observation he has made in his four years here is that the students' standard of English has been progressively declining. This makes learning difficult, particularly for students with a weak science background. They need to grapple not only with the new, science-related terminology, but also its expression in English. This has affected teaching too. Teachers find it difficult to cover the curriculum in full because students are unfamiliar with not only the scientific contents of the course but also the medium of instruction. Dr. Robinson says, 'It is difficult to find out whether these students have understood or not, since they are not very forthcoming in either asking questions or answering them in front of all their friends. This is a problem I am sure all English-speaking lecturers have to cope with. Considering that the students need to have attained a certain level of language proficiency in both Chinese and English at the time of admission to the University, the problem needs to be addressed either in the evaluation of the required level or its implementation.' Space a Constraining Factor Housed on the ground floor of the Kwok Sports Building, the department is 'very tight for space, and bursting at the seams.' There are only six offices for staff members, one classroom, and three laboratories. Though they have the use of other classrooms within the University, their own facilities have to serve as multi-purpose rooms whenever necessary. Furthermore, as the building was purpose-built as a squash centre, all three laboratories are actually conversions. The sports psychology laboratory, for example, serves as a laboratory-cum- classroom. The biomechanics laboratory was originally intended as a viewing gallery for one of the squash courts. And the equipment in the 'full to bursting' exercise physiology laboratory cannot be spaced out as it should be: the bicycle ergometers, the treadmill, the plastic Douglas bags and all other specialized equipment are all cramped together in a most dissatisfying manner. Dr. Robinson hopes that the space problem can somehow be resolved to ease teaching, research, and administration. One-line Budget May Breed Insularity of Departments Last but not least, Dr. Robinson is worried that while the one-line budget is good in some aspects, it may result in increased insularity in departmental spending. Departments w i ll tend to spend resources on their own programmes and not on projects or courses that benefit students of other departments. Very often student quotas placed on courses are filled by students of the department offering the course. 'I am not sure how this is going to develop,' he says, 'but it does not bode well for either joint courses or greater interaction between different departments.' How w i ll this insularity affect the department's development plans? 'We don't just want to produce physical education teachers; we want to produce people who, after doing a sports science degree, can move into all sorts of fields in Hong Kong, such as the health sciences, recreation, management, etc. In the long term, we would like to be able to offer not only B. Ed. degrees, but maybe a B.Sc. in sports science or a BA in sports studies. A ll these require inter-departmental cooperation and the pooling of resources. For instance, if a student is studying sports sociology, it would be beneficial if he could take courses in the psychology department or the sociology department.' Dr. Robinson concludes, 'It is unlikely that any new programmes can be implemented unless other departments are willing to support and underpin the courses we offer.' Shalini Bahadur