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Focusing on Learning Outcomes and Authentic Interdisciplinary Problems

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Problem-based Learning into the Future

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Abstract

In Chap. 3, we have identified the challenge in designing a technology-supported agile PBL environment that stays true to the original intentions of PBL and that leverages technology to enhance the impact of learning in teams, rather than reducing it. We have also imagined what we called the ‘next generation of learners’ and began to identify the characteristics that they may bring to the formal learning environments. Of course, the flipside of considering student characteristics as they enter a particular learning environment is that we also need to define and clarify what we want them to learn and be able to do, once they have moved into and through this formal learning environment. In other words, what do we imagine their characteristics to be when they move out of the university? How do those characteristics align with what they are likely to encounter when they complete their university studies? And how do we ensure that we draw on students’ prior learning and strengths while simultaneously empowering them with the skills, dispositions and knowledges to engage meaningfully and productively in the present and future twenty-first-century context? In this chapter, we begin to imagine what curriculum design in an agile PBL context might look like, and we begin to imagine how interdisciplinary PBL problem may be conceived.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

    Megan Yih Chyn A. Kek

  2. Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China

    Henk Huijser

  3. Batchelor Institute, Batchelor, NT, Australia

    Henk Huijser

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  1. Megan Yih Chyn A. Kek
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  2. Henk Huijser
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Kek, M.Y.C.A., Huijser, H. (2017). Focusing on Learning Outcomes and Authentic Interdisciplinary Problems. In: Problem-based Learning into the Future. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2454-2_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-2454-2_4

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