The process is aimed at using the power of authentic problem solving to engage students and enhance their learning and motivation. In a PBL course, students and the instructor become colearners, coplanners, coproducers, and coevaluators as they design, implement, and continually refine their curricula. The PBL approach is grounded in solid academic research on learning and on the best practices that promote it. This approach stimulates students to take responsibility for their own learning, since there are few lectures, no structured sequence of assigned readings, and so on. The problem is one that MBA students are likely to face as future professionals.
Expertise is developed by engaging in progressive problem solving.
Thus, problems drive the organization and dynamics of the course. MBA students, individually and collectively, assume major responsibility for their own learning and instruction. Most of the learning occurs in small groups rather than in lectures. My role is more like that of a facilitator and coach of student learning, acting at times as a resource person, rather than as knowledge-holder and disseminator. PBL originated from a curriculum reform by medical faculty at Case Western Reserve University in the late 1950s.