Distributed pbl in Secondary Teacher Education 1 CRACKING THE RESOURCE NUT WITH DISTRIBUTED PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING IN SECONDARY TEACHER EDUCATION

Abstract

In this article, we focus on the features and functions of the STEP pbl System that enable us to support novice tutors and thereby address the human resource challenge that implementing a pbl course in a typical undergraduate setting poses. We describe the activities students in our course engage in and present preliminary findings from our first trial of the system. We then describe our strategies for distributing the functions of the tutor based on the first trial and previous course implementations. We conclude with a description of the research methodology we are using to shepherd our site development efforts. Distributed pbl in Secondary Teacher Education 4 Implementing problem-based learning (PBL) in a traditional undergraduate setting is really a problem of resources. At many universities, large undergraduate courses continue to be held in vast lecture halls typically equipped with an elevated stage in front and desks bolted to an inclined floor. In a good semester, there is one teaching assistant (TA) to roughly every 30 students. There are not