Introduction

				cerbin@mail.uwlax.e du


					Contact


	SITE TOUR




	Bill's audio reflection on his work


	(a note about authorship)


	*Research indicates that deep understanding of a subject is not an automatic consequence of teaching or of students' efforts to learn. In The Unschooled Mind,* Howard Gardner concludes that**

		". . . an ordinary degree of understanding is routinely missing in many, if not most students. It is reasonable to expect a college student to be able to apply in a new context a law of physics, or a proof in geometry, or a concept in history of which she just demonstrated mastery in her class. If when the circumstances of testing are slightly altered, the sought-after competence can no longer be documented, then understanding-in any reasonable sense of the term-has simply not been achieved." (1991, p.6)

	In my classes students' understanding of important disciplinary concepts tends to be superficial and underdeveloped (c.f. Course Portfolio, Cerbin, 1992). Moreover, students have difficulty applying disciplinary knowledge beyond the contexts in which it is learned. And, even when students seem to have a grasp of a concept they may not be able to "think with it"-- to interpret, analyze or solve a new problem (Broudy, 1977). It seems that learning without understanding is commonplace. Of course there is no single reason why students fail to achieve deep understanding of what they study, but we do know some of the important factors that impede learning with understanding (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999). The present study focuses on two pervasive dilemmas; click for descriptive information about each dilemma. Teaching for understanding. Over the years, I have used a variety of specific techniques to promote student understanding. Even though students do achieve some level of understanding in my classes, too often it is incomplete and fragile. Consequently, I have adopted problem-based learning, a more systemic approach to teach for understanding. "PBL" offers a way to deal directly with the dilemmas of prior knowledge and inert knowledge. There is a growing body of research demonstrating that PBL can enhance transfer of concepts to new problems (Norman and Schmidt, 1992). How the course is designed to develop understanding and transfer of learning. The course is organized around a series of six complex, open-ended problems consisting of scenarios one might find in a classroom, school or school district. they are designed to promote students' ability to use theoretical principles to analyze typical classroom learning problems and develop ways to respond to these difficulties. The problems encompass the broad topics of learning and cognition. In conjunction with their work on the problems, students read, wrote about and discussed relevant articles, chapters and other course materials related to learning and cognition. As students studied the materials they encountered concepts and principles relevant to the problems. Each problem became a new context in which to apply that knowledge and also to extend students' understanding of the concepts.As a set, the problems encompass the content areas of educational psychology so that students learn "the content" as they solve problems for which the material is relevant. The problem solving process is structured so that students articulate, try out, and revise their understanding of the subject as they work through each problem. For example, when students encounter a new problem, they articulate their initial understanding and beliefs about the scenario. During the ensuing problem solving process students are challenged to develop their ideas in light of: 1. alternative perspectives from peers. 2. additional information I add to the problem scenario that may conflict with or confirm their ideas. 3. reading material that introduces disciplinary concepts and perspectives relevant to the problems. 4. writing assignments in which students use course material to analyze and explain issues related to the problems. 5. commentary I provide on writing assignments and in consultation during group problem solving sessions in class. The remainder of this report examines student performance with respect to each problem. Separately, each episode provides an account of what and how students were able to grasp and use new ideas. Together, the episodes demonstrate the development of understanding during a significant portion of the class. Over the course of the last year, I've studied this course, and to learn more about this course and these studies, continue on to my Overview of this course. If you're interested in how the course developed, see Evolution of the Course. To examine resources and artifacts from my class, please visit the Resources section. For overall navigation of the site, please go to the Site Map.

This site contains the results of Bill Cerbin's inquiry into one of his educational psychology courses. The links at left provide an overview of the Problem-Based Learning course as well as descriptions and analyses of assessments of students' understanding at six different points in the course. You can see the descriptions of each of the problems by following the red "Problem" links or Bill's analyses of students' understanding by following the blue "Analysis" links, and follow the green "Further Discussion" links for more information.

For a more detailed picture of how Bill taught one class-- including some audio and video clips-- follow the links that begin in the Reciprocal Teaching Problem.

For an overview of how this site has been constructed, see the site map. For copies of many of the materials and references that Bill used in the course, see the resources section.

The series of problems consisted of:

1.Middle School Science. A problem about a seventh grade science class in which a large number of children are doing poorly. My students investigate the situation and develop strategies to improve the seventh graders' learning.

2.Reciprocal Teaching. An exercise about a method to teach reading comprehension. My students analyze and explain why the method improves comprehension.

3.Flawed Thinking. An exercise about "flawed thinking" in which students analyze and explain episodes that depict common gaps in thinking.

4.Analysis of Two Students. A case study about two seventh grade children. My students analyze the way the children learn and propose ways to improve their learning.

5.Group Learning. A problem about group learning in a college classroom. Students analyze the situation and propose ways to improve learning in the group setting.

6.Teaching for Understanding Project. A teaching for understanding project in which students design a plan to teach a subject for understanding.

(Complete problem descriptions and materials are contained in the resources section.)


	© 2000 Cerbin, Pointer, Hatch, Iiyoshi. These materials may be used and duplicated in keeping with accepted publication standards. If any of these materials are reproduced, please provide proper credit by listing the authors and the address of the home page: http://kml.carnegiefoundation.org/gallery/bcerbin.


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