Problem-based learning - Opinions? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: jp1390
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 07:15:14 am
content: Hello all,I'll try to be brief but I am curious to see where people stand in terms of the course structure of engineering programs. For some background information about me: I am in my fourth year of Electrical Engineering and have a passion for all things electronic.I would like to hear your experience with how your found your engineering education during post-secondary school. I feel as though there is such little emphasis placed on the development of communication, inquiry, and problem-solving in the classroom where I feel that it is of the utmost importance. I realize that there is so much content to squeeze into a four/five year time span but why do we go through all of the trouble when most of the material is not retained anyway? I think that I would have benefitted more having tutorial time spent working in groups solving conceptual problems rather than watching a teaching assistant take up questions to assignments with little engagement of the students. Sure, the onus is on us, the students, to prepare and learn the material, but how is this challenging us to grow as individuals? I am envious of the nursing and health science programs that go through problem-based learning scenarios that really challenge you to think independently and critically. I feel as though we are just trained to be mindless robots.Maybe this doesn't apply to all of you, but I am curious to hear your opinions on this. I know that I am not alone in terms of this discussion as it has been brought up on numerous occasions here at school. I just feel like the program that you choose to go into should be of interest but should challenge you to grow as an individual.Thoughts?Cheers!JP

author: tbscope
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 07:29:29 am
content: I share your opinion. Most engineering programs are too theoretical.On the other hand, in order to do problem solving, it is nice to know the theory first. Learning the theory from solving problems will work, but you might miss important items. Theory and practice should complement eachother.And because of cost and time, practice usually means solving math problems.Education also doesn't end after 4 or 5 years. And you get most of your practical experience on the work floor.But there is a huge gap from graduating to getting comfortable on the work floor. Imagine you graduate with nice grades, you know your stuff you think, and then get hired to solve a problem on a very complex and large system. You can't, even with all the practical experience you could ever have had. Solving that problem is learning how it all works. Ok, if you designed it in the first place, it will be easier of course. And some problems keep returning over and over again.It is not a good idea to expect that once you've graduated you can start from day one with tons of experience, even if you have a lot of problem solving.And it is not a good idea for any company to expect that from any graduate.Most universities also expect that students take interest in what they study. This means that you're expected to learn and do a lot by yourself. Look at the "maker" movement. You see in many universities groups of students that build robots, etc...Often, you might even have those projects you do on your own or in group have influence on your grades.Well, that's my opinion.

author: Bored@Work
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 08:17:38 am
content: Quote from: jp1390 on January 30, 2012, 07:15:14 amThis is not their job. You are an adult now, not a school pupil anymore. You are supposed to learn and grow on your own. At uni they show you how to learn and then what you need to know to get that piece of paper. It is up to you to acquire the required knowledge in whatever way you can.The funny thing is that young people are so eager and often obnoxious to be treated as adults. And when an institution like a university does treat them as adults the "but they need to help me to grow as an individual" junk comes up. No, they don't. It is now your job alone, not the uni's, and no longer your mom's or dad's job.And remember, the laws of physics don't change just because you are so special, even if your mom and dad did tell you that through all your life.QuoteWhen you get older, and therefore involuntarily come more often into contact with health care professionals you quickly get the feeling there is something severely wrong with their education. Not to say a lot of them are just frauds. They might have had a lot of fun at uni holding each other's hands and playing ring-a-ring-a-roses or dancing their names in the snow, but they just have no fucking clue. Problem-based learning scenarios aren't a substitute for meticulously learning the basics of your profession.But hey, you are now an adult and responsible for your own destiny. If you think nursing and health science is more for you than EE, then why not drop EE and join the nursing and health science program? Then you can play ring-a-ring-a-roses as an individual, too. It is your life and the only one to blame for your decisions is you.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 11:02:21 am
content: I'm sorry,but your posting comes over,more or less,as a "bleat".That is definitely how Bored At Work has perceived it.Are you suggesting that instead of ensuring you have a solid basis of theory,the Uni should just let you loose on solving problems in thehope you will somehow "teach yourself "enough to find the answers,on the assumption that this will be enough to prepare you for a career in Electronics?How is it that "most of the material is not retained anyway"?Do you have Alzheimer's Disease?I cannot believe that people in the Health Sciences are left to find out about Human Anatomy & Physiology by "solving problems"."Well that was a good outcome,we solved the problem!""Shame about the Patient ,though!"VK6ZGO

author: jp1390
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 07:06:19 pm
content: Thanks for your posts and thoughts!I understand where your ideas are coming from as to why learning the theory is critical, but my point is based on how it is being delivered to us and what can we make of it. Work experience does help to build these critical thinking skills but why wait until you graduate to become involved with these. Working on extracurricular projects or hobby projects are awesome ways to build these skills, but with a profession such as engineering, these skills should be developed to a certain level prior to becoming a functioning member of a company or society in general.I feel as though engineering gets its reputation for being a challenging program simply for the comprehension of the material. Throughout my entire time at university I feel as though I have been passively learning loads of material, where most of it will never be useful to me in the future. It is difficult to learn a lot of material in a short time span but I feel that grades become absolutely irrelevant to what you know or gain from taking a course.I chose engineering because I had a thorough interest in how system work applying mathematics and physics to problems but I chose to go to university because I felt as though it would be a means of allowing for personal growth and to challenge my personal abilities. I am not implying that lecture content be cut down for the sake of it being too complicated; I am just slowly putting the pieces together and seeing why lectures are not engaging, why people hate profs who challenge them to think conceptually rather than memorizing formulas. Maybe it is just my school, but I feel as though we are just not given as much of a chance to think liberally about problems or placed in situations where we are to come up with solutions on spot or having to justify actions/ideas.I may be rambling and I am not by any means trying to bash the program. I have enjoyed my time and thoroughly enjoy the material. It is just that on a personal level I feel as though my current approach to solving problems has literally not changed since I started university. I love electronics but I am not sure what my future looks like in the next 10 years, who knows maybe I will choose not to be an engineer. I just want to be able to look back at my time at university and say that I gained something more than just the content delivered.I realize that this is an EE forum and my views are probably not shared by all. Thanks for reading.

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 07:14:38 pm
content: Problem based learning isn't unstructured but it is looser than traditional lecture, test and lab style education. The core is to discuss the current topic of the curricula around a problem; the instructor looks at a students thinking strategy as well as the final solution. Problems are selected for the current curricula. For example, the first maybe around ohms law and DC circuits, before semiconductors.An instructor only provides guidance whose role is to get students over humps when stuck and to keep the ball rolling during a class.A main difference is students aren't spoon fed, nor are there fixed questions in a lab book that require answers by a lab 'exercise.' The instructor can ask anything relating to material in session and student discuss, raise questions that are answered by other students, and if not, by the instructor.Students must read all theoretical material before a class session, or they won't have the theory which will the basis for solving problems or discussion. In engineering schools, the 'discussion' could be or include lab, with the solution being demonstrated in real circuits, not just discussion.For PBL to work the students have to analytical and homogenous in terms of learning ability. Thus, schools that do PBL are very selective of students [ Last I heard, MIT, teach with PBL]. If a high school student got all As from a perfect memory, they may not survive a PBL curriculum.There are no students who survive PBL curricula who one can say are book wise, but inept in the real world.Now an added down side, it relies heavily on the instructor's involvement and grading can be subjective and leads to problems if students challenge low or failing grades. When you go into such a school, you must agree to be under the mercy of the instructor. Classes are always small, no more than 7.

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 08:07:30 pm
content: What uni?

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 09:07:43 pm
content: In the USA? an example is MIT, even nonengineering, are taught with PBL even when it wasn't called that then.http://due.mit.edu/undergraduate-education-mit/what-undergraduate-education-mitMore details on PBL:http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CDYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ee.ucl.ac.uk%2F%257Emflanaga%2FPBL_EE_UCL.ppt&ei=cgAnT_fAOanX0QGWr5mFCQ&usg=AFQjCNFRCHeiT4TuX6-BvshrLOTdcy9sEQQuote from: slateraptor on January 30, 2012, 08:07:30 pm

author: slateraptor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2012, 09:28:21 pm
content: The question was actually directed towards the OP...sorry about the confusion.EDIT: I looked at the MIT link and there doesn't appear to be anything inherently noteworthy with respect to undergraduate education; also, lectures shown on OCW look pretty normal to me. I'd wager to say that their undergrads somewhat lack in the sense that it's well known in academia of the cheating that runs rampant in lower-division "weed out" courses. I feel like the only compensatory factor is that MIT recruits some of the brightest youth in the country.There's is one thing that I like about their structure: how they enforce a lecture+recitation structure. I've had only one upper-division course that enforced this, and it happened to be taught byCal-Tech alumnus(now current department chair).

author: IanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2012, 12:32:33 am
content: Quote from: jp1390 on January 30, 2012, 07:06:19 pmIt's really all about "building blocks" and setting foundations for more advanced study.For an analogy, think about martial arts training. As a neophyte, you get put through a lot of repetition and basic stuff, learning by the rules with little room for making your own moves or doing anything freestyle. You advance through the coloured belts test by test until eventually you get to black belt or first dan. At which point you have just reached the first rung at the bottom of the ladder and can start putting all the moves together in more effective ways as you try to advance through the grades.Undergraduate engineering is a bit like that. You have to learn all the basic theory before you can even begin to try and practice engineering in the real world. That's where you start putting the theory together and seeing how it really applies.As to being useful in the future, I have found that most of what I learned (or was supposed to learn) became relevant and useful at various times in my later career. I couldn't see where it would lead at the time, but almost all the different pieces of theory eventually found a place and a use in something I needed to do. Maybe I would have to go back and read up on it and refresh my memory, but the key thing was that I knew where to look and what I needed, so when I reviewed the material it made sense.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2012, 02:17:35 am
content: One thing you are supposed to learn is how to express yourself clearly.Your first post was a failure in this respect,& brought the old grump out in some of us ------me,in particular!On reading your second one,I think I understand your point.I feel that this may be a problem which has reared its head only in the past couple of decades.In my own country,at least,many Engineering students had the opportunity to work in the field,addressing real world problems during breaks from University.Also,most Universities had a fair amount of real hardware available for students to "play with".Unfortunately,we now live in a more mean-spirited world,in which businesses don't like having "half-baked" engineers pottering around,using up resources that could be used to make money.Engineering Traineeships are a thing of the past,so the poor young "Ginger Beer"is cast on his/her own resources.Then there is the worry about insurance coverage,both with employers & the Universities.The Unis figure that you can't get into any trouble looking at "pretend" devices on a computer,whereas if a student got caught up an a large rotating Electrical machine,it could cost them a kings ransom.It looks to me as if you have to do the problem solving in your own time,as the Uni is not going to go there!VK6ZGO

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 31, 2012, 11:54:17 am
content: For clarification, you might glance over the word 'problem solving' and think it like any other program. This is what many EE program are just doing, and think the way things could be.MIT was among the first to involve students in what many now call problem based learning, but it doesn't have the same structure as the official pedagogy for those who implement it PBL.Some things to check, the UROP program, which linked undergrads with faculty projects at MIT, giving work at the project credit for courses or other options. This program is now done by over 80% of the studs, who choose a 'problem based' approach and gives them practical experience, it began in 1969.http://mit.edu/urop/basicinfo/index.htmlThey implemented a model called 'project based' and is pioneered by the Media Lab, which is really the details of UROP but this time as a model for all their programs at MIT besides EE.http://web.mit.edu/fnl/volume/194/norford.htmlMany professors individually use PBL in lieu of the lecture approach. Just google 'problem based' and MIT and you'll find them.Quote from: slateraptor on January 30, 2012, 09:28:21 pm