Problem-Based Learning in the Wild

• In Event: Problem-Based Learning in Diverse Places: Motivation, Processes, and Beliefs

Abstract

While researchers have made strides to understand the value of and ways to support ill-structured problem-based learning, we have yet to surmount underlying power relations that prevent students from learning to direct their framing of such problems and developing framing agency—the capacity to make decisions that are consequential to learning about and framing problems. We conducted participant observation in a US Military outreach and innovation unit engaged in reframing a problem. We analyzed talk-over-time for framing agency and power relations. Leaders used long silences, low agency displays, and explicit framing of the problem as shared to mitigate their power. Despite different power relations, these techniques are applicable to problem-based classrooms.

Authors

• Vanessa Svihla, University of New Mexico

• Amber Gallup, Unified Solutions Tribal Community Development Group, Inc.

• Matt Fetrow, Air Force Research Laboratory