THE TUTOR'S (TEACHER'S) ROLE IN A PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING CURRICULUM

One of the many exciting features of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is the empowerment of a teacher to become an active designer of curriculum and afacilitator of learning. As a curriculum designer, the typical teacher's role changes from implementing externally made curriculum decisions to being an active decision maker in the curriculum planning process. As a PBL tutor, the teacher's role changes from that of a disseminator of information to a facilitator of learning.

The facilitatory skills of the teacher are central to the success of PBL. The teacher serves as a coach or guide for student learning. As a facilitator, the teacher challenges, questions, and stimulates the students in their thinking, problem solving and self-directed study. After a while, the students will similarly challenge each other and themselves as they work, think, and learn. In this process, students assume responsibility for their learning and move from teacher-centered to student-centered education. The student becomes an active as opposed to passive learner.

As a designer of curriculum, the teacher's challenge is to select and structure problems so that they address both the important content objectives of the curriculum and important real-world issues. This process results in a reaffirmation of the importance of some objectives, the clarification of some and the elimination of others as lacking relevance or importance.

PBL problems have been designed to stimulate both the teaching and the curriculum design roles of the teacher, to stimulate, not to stifle. For the teacher using facilitatory skills (tutor) these problems serve to support facilitation of the PBL process and focus the direction of the problem. For the curriculum designer, they serve mainly as a prime (or model) for the creative pump.

-- SIU Medical School, Barrows, Kelsner
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