As a result, new graduates are more likely to be effective in their first few years of teaching and more likely to remain in the profession. Through its Center for Quality Education, over 3,000 Alabama teachers and administrators have already participated in quality-oriented professional development experiences. Presenting a problem and then allowing students to struggle towards a solution can be painful, Box says. Ash compares it to raising a small child, reaching a stage in the child's development where you know you have to step back and let them work through their own frustration. But as good parents we know they have to learn for themselves.
Good teachers have the same outlook.
Samford student Sarah Sprouse recalls her first encounter with a PBL class this way. Our professor assigned our projects, and we got in our groups, and we were starting to work on it. We wanted her to just tell us what to do. I've given you the guidelines and you have to come up with your own way of doing it,' she said. We really struggled for the first couple of weeks trying to figure out what we were going to do, how we were going to do it.