Special Interest Topics Problem Based Learning Introduction . PBL is widely used in the professions, particularly in health professions of medicine and nursing, in engineering and in architecture. It is also increasingly used in other faculties e.g. Arts at Mastricht in Holland. Thus a PBL curriculum starts with problems rather than disciplinary knowledge.
Students work in small groups to solve the problem or puzzle.
In so doing they learn disciplinary knowledge and professional skills in the context in which they will be used and applied in actual professional practice. The primary role of the teacher in PBL is as a facilitator of small group learning NOT as a purveyor of information. Students are required to tackle the 'problem' and in the process are expected to identify and learn the relevant knowledge and skills to address the problem. Through carefully selected and constructed problems, students acquire the range of contextual, biophysical, scientific, social and humanistic knowledge and professional and technical skills needed for competent professional practice. Usually problems are developed with sufficient aspects or subproblems to engage a variety of aspects for analysis, knowledge and skills development and reflection.