Structuring On-Line Teacher Professional Development With Problem Based Learning

NASA ESSEA High School Course

By Hilarie B. Davis, Robert J. Myers and James P. Botti

Introduction

This paper will describe our experience in designing, developing, and implementing an online graduate course using problem-based learning (PBL) as the approach to staff development.   The course was designed purposely to model PBL and its support of the National Science Education Standards (NRC, 1996).  The course was developed for NASA's Earth Science Enterprise as a means of continuing education for inservice teachers.  The primary objective of the course was to demonstrate that teachers could increase their content knowledge in Earth System Science (ESS).  PBL was used as the course structure to provide a constructive and supportive environment for teachers to gain knowledge about Earth Systems Science in an inquiry environment that would also be a vehicle for later engaging their students with the content.

Science Education Standards

A growing body of science educators state that students should learn science as a process and should engage in meaningful, relevant tasks that allow them to interpret their world in scientific terms (Tobin, Tippins, Gallard, 1994).  To prepare teachers for this shift in methodology, the National Science Education Standards (NSES, 1996) call for professional development analogous to professional development in other professions.  With an expanding knowledge base, the process of becoming and maintaining effective science teaching is a career-long requirement.   The NSES reform effort requires a substantive change in how science is taught.  Much current professional development emphasizes traditional lectures with the usual focus on technical training about teaching.  Instead, suggests the NSES, "…professional development must include experiences that engage prospective and practicing teachers in active learning that builds their knowledge, understanding, and ability" (p. 56).  Teachers must experience the vision of science and the way it is learned in accordance with the standards if teachers expect to use them with students.  As stated in the NSES, "Simply put, preservice programs and professional development activities for practicing teachers must model good science teaching as described in the teaching standards…" (p. 56).

The standards call for students to be actively engaged in scientific inquiry — alone and in groups — in developing understanding about the natural world.  Students are to conduct inquiry into authentic questions generated from experiences.    This requires students to pose questions about scientific phenomena, develop plans for investigation, gather and analyze, and interpret data, and present findings or recommendations.  The standards state that "changes required in the educational system to support quality science teaching are major ones" p. 56." 

To prepare teachers to function in this environment, the standards state that college faculty must develop courses based on investigations.  In these investigations, teachers use technology to gather and interpret data.  They are also involved in collaborative work involving authentic, open-ended problems.   Engaging in collaborative work allows teaches to experience inquiry methods, along with its rewards and challenges. 

Teacher Professional Development

Loucks-Horsley, Hewson, Love and Stiles (1998) in their book, Designing Professional Development for Teachers of Science and Mathematics, state that principles that guide reform for students' learning should provide guidance for teacher professional development.   Reminding us that teachers teach as they are taught, so engaging them in  "active learning, focusing on fewer ideas more deeply, and learning collaboratively are all principles that must characterize learning opportunities for adults" (p. xix).  Their model includes individual teacher reflection, a focus on learning or improvement, mechanisms for feedback and sharing, and opportunities for interaction.  They also recommend a climate of trust and collegiality, a long-term commitment to interaction, and skill building in coaching and mentoring.

Problem-Based Learning

Problem-Based Learning meets all of the criteria laid out above for inquiry-based science classrooms through its constructivist orientation to teaching and learning.   PBL is designed to facilitate active student participation, foster problem solving and metacognition, enhance self-assessment, and increase student ability to access and use information (Dunlop, 1997; Seifert, 1997).

Finkle and Torp (1995) state that “problem-based learning is a curriculum development and instructional system that simultaneously develops both problem solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and skills by placing students in the active role of problem-solvers confronted with an ill-structured problem that mirrors real-world problems” (p. 1). The online graduate course we developed supports Finkle and Torp’s vision by immersing teacher/participants in real-world problems—problems that allow them to master critical thinking skills while learning content related to environmental and earth science subject matter.

Brooks and Brooks (1993) state that learners of all ages are more engaged in problems addressed in “whole to part” forms.  This structure allows for multiple-entry points and addresses multiple learning styles.  Providing an overarching problem set also creates a purpose for engagement, as opposed to the usual assignment of a chapter and end-of-chapter study questions.  Students know from the outset where they are headed and why.

Problem presentation involves presenting students with an ill-structured problem in which they can find personal relevance.  Barrows (1990) defines ill-structured problems as follows: a) more information than is initially available is needed to understand the problem, b) the problem definition changes as new information is added to the situation, c) many perspectives can be used to interpret information, and d) no absolutely "right" answer exists.  Well-structured problems, problems most commonly presented to students in the school setting, provide students with all necessary information including the appropriate algorithm needed to arrive at a single correct answer.  Student motivation to solve the problem revolves around finding the answer desired by the teacher.  This is likely to lead to inert, unusable knowledge.  When students work to solve ill-structured problems, they are working toward learning generalized procedures for problem solving that will transfer to new situations (Simon, 1980; cited in Frederiksen, 1984).

In our version of PBL (http://davem2.cotf.edu/essc3), participants first reflect on what they know and think (theories) about the problem, and then develop “need to know” questions to be able to address the problem more fully. Their theories and questions drive their research and eventually form the support for formulating a problem statement and proposing solutions.  Moving between individual and team activities creates opportunities for building self-knowledge and for feedback on the efficacy of ideas.

Three Week Cycle: Coral Reefs

Figure One

Online Knowledge Building Communities

Online courses consisting of communities of learners are experiencing increasing use and credibility (Duffy, Dueber and Hawley, in press; Hewitt and Scardamalia, 1997; Hewitt, Web and Rowley, 1994) due to their potential for increasing intentional learning through interpersonal interaction (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1994).   Many researchers are asking questions such as whether online collaboration using authentic problems is feasible (Carr-Chellman, Breman, Dyer, 2000), or whether or not online communities provide better environments than traditional face-to-face classes (Russell, 1999; Young, J.R., 2000).  The developers of this course were more concerned with the participants' subject matter mastery through exposure and experience with problem-based environments.  We had already become satisfied that online, inquiry-based approaches were feasible during prior development and testing (Davis & Myers, 1998).

The PBL Learning Environment

The course was delivered completely online through a Web-based site.  The site included background information, grading rubrics, a syllabus, and a threaded discussion area.  No face-to-face meetings were held; the entire course was conducted in a structured asynchronous mode.  By structured asynchronous, we mean that each week teachers were expected to accomplish specific tasks.  Participants could determine when they would get online during that week to complete the requirements.

Virtual Classroom Space

Figure Two

The sixteen-week, three-credit hour course was divided into an introductory section of three weeks and four, three-week modules.  The long introductory section allowed for a leveling of skills in computer use, Web knowledge, ability to operate in threaded discussion space, and Earth System Science modeling.  Our prior experience with online courses suggested that many teachers would not have the requisite skills of background knowledge to immediately launch into collaborative problem solving activities.  In addition, teachers were provided a demonstration problem and scaffolds to move through the PBL process. Four units followed (each three weeks) in which teachers problem solved, built model, and designed learning experiences.

Weekly Expectations

Figure Three

At the beginning of the fourth week, teachers began the four, three-week modules.  During the first week, teachers took on the role of "Teachers as Problem Solvers."  As problem solvers, teachers read a scenario depicting an authentic earth system science problem.  For example, the problem on deforestation provides information about the worldwide decline in tropical rainforests, points out the impact of the continuing problem on worldwide atmospheric content and climate, and asks teachers to investigate the causes and impacts of the situation.  In teams, the teachers are asked to make recommendations or point to potential solutions.

The first week, Teacher a Problem Solver, was divided into two sections.  First, each participant was asked to put down what s/he knew about the topic as soon as the scenario was read.     This requirement comes from the familiar KWL chart used in PBL[1].  Listing the private theories already held by each individual provides a baseline of knowledge and allows learners to identify closely held beliefs that form the basis of misconceptions and also create a need to know more.  After the private theories were listed, individuals then met with their group in another discussion area to consolidate what was known and to develop a list of questions for research and investigation.  Group research continued for the rest of week one and into week two.

Listing “Need to Know” Questions in Team Space

Figure Four

During week two, called Teacher as Model Builder, the groups conducted investigations to find answers to the questions and begin to construct alternative models to their private theories based on the information they found or developed.  Often new information provided new questions to be answered, but as this week wound down, the groups synthesized what they had learned in order to make recommendations.   At the end of the second week, each individual went back to his/her private theory and addressed what s/he had learned.  This was referred to as the "Reflective Learner" submissions. The intention of having individuals revisit their initial submission was to have them look at the growth in knowledge from a metacognitive sense, to have them provide sources that had modified or added to their knowledge base, and to support any new assertions with evidence.   This step was seen as a means of introducing rigor in the teachers, thinking — a practice that would be of value to them with their own students in being willing to examine their private theories.

During the Teacher as Designer phase in week three, teachers were required to design a PBL scenario for their own classroom using the concepts learned during the first two weeks.  After identifying connections to their own curricula by listing learning objectives, concepts and skills that needed to be addressed, teachers wrote a new or adapted PBL scenario to support their students’ developmental levels.  Teachers were also required to act as critical friends by providing feedback to each other after the scenarios were completed.  Course participants were introduced to authentic problem sets, these included volcanoes, coral reef degradation, deforestation, ozone depletion, and global warming.

The Course Participants

Thirteen teachers began the course; ten completed the course.  Teachers had varied backgrounds; all were high school teachers.  Teachers volunteered to assist in beta-testing the course for three hours of graduate credit.

Table One

Method

The questions of interest to us were:

·      How does the use of PBL affect the development of content knowledge?

·      What would we expect to see if PBL affects content knowledge? Or to put it another way, what would constitute evidence of an effect? 

·      Do the byproducts of learning in the PBL process indicate a positive change in content knowledge?

To examine these questions, we decided to look at participants who engaged in the PBL process, both as individuals and as a group. One group was chosen as an initial case study. Several byproducts would be indicators of content knowledge change:

1.     Private theories would evolve to become more accurate, better supported and more elaborated

2.     Participants would ask “need to know” questions of both lower and higher level types -- indicating a push on their existing knowledge.

3.     Participants would seek and find answers to their questions that were supportable through logic, authority or personal experience.

4.     Participants would be able to accurately describe sphere interactions in Earth’s systems in a context or event situation.

Results

1.  Private theories would evolve to become more accurate, better supported, and more elaborated

First we analyzed teacher’s assertions about the natural event, the numbers of supporting reasons for their assertions, the accuracy of the assertions and supporting evidence, and the interconnection elaboration or synthesis.  In lay terms we wanted to know if they could make assertions, support those assertions with valid evidence and begin to see the interconnectedness from a systems perspective.  Table 2 contains the average number of occurrences for all participants in expressing their private theory (PT) and then their subsequent Reflective Learner Theory (RLT). 

Tab le Two

We found that private theories evolved to become more accurate, better supported, and more elaborated.  Readers should keep in mind that the Reflective Learner Theory followed the Private Theory by a week and a half.  In the interim, each individual worked with his/her group in asking and then answering questions Earth System Science questions.  We would have expected the substantial growth evidenced in Table Two.

2.  Participants would ask “need to know” questions of both lower and higher level types -- indicating a push on their existing knowledge.  Participants would seek and find answers to their questions that were supportable through logic, authority or personal experience.

The “need to know” questions asked by participants were of both lower and higher level types -‑ indicating a push on their existing knowledge.  As can be seen in Table 3, teachers got in the habit of posing many questions to guide them in one of their three-week investigations.  Teachers found answers to nearly all of their questions.  Examples of teachers’ questions are found in Table 4.

Coral Reef – Green Sweep Team

Table Three

Sample Questions

Table Four

Teachers’ questions spanned the disciplines, covering biology, earth science, and chemistry.  The questions also span fact and theory, and lower and higher order thinking.

4.  Participants would be able to accurately describe sphere interactions in Earth’s systems in a context or event situation.

Table 5 contains a sample of one teacher’s growth in the understanding of coral reefs.

 Table Five

The situation depicted by the teacher in Table Five is a difficult problem – one that is generating a great deal of research.  This student’s knowledge has obviously grown to the point that better questions are being asked and some knowledge of potential solutions is in evidence. The following is the final presentation of one of the groups:

Table Six

The group’s solution is complex and they have cited the source of their evidence.

5.  In addition to analysis of the participants’ artifacts, teachers were given a pre- and post-course questionnaire.  The following comments are from the post-course questionnaire:

I plan to make greater use of PBL in class. I will make greater use of rubrics, particularly with PBL units. 

I have tried one of the PBL lessons I developed for this course with my students.  They responded better than I expected.  As a result I find myself increasing my expectations.

I am going to use my knowledge from this course to enlighten my students of ESS and PBL learning. 

Yes. I learned a lot about the connections between earth science systems, the PBL method of learning, some current environmental problems. The course also greatly improved my computing skills.

I really enjoyed the course, even though there were times when the time commitment was overwhelming.  I am quite satisfied with what I have learned about Earth Systems Science and the PBL method. 

Discussion 
If PBL is a viable instructional tool for online learning of complex content, we would expect it to reveal and affect learners' private theories. We would expect it to cause them to generate questions that are worthy of answering and interesting to them to answer. We would expect learners to actively and successfully find answers to those questions and that all these would result in comfort with ESS knowledge. 
 
The initial results suggest that the byproducts of PBL provide adequate evidence to examine the elements of the learning process, incremental knowledge gains, and overall knowledge gains.  
 
The intransigence of beliefs in the face of new information requires experience to be "undone" (Brooks and Brooks, 1993), as well as active labeling of what is known and how it is known. The online environment was successfully structured with assignments to prompt learners to state and evolve their private theories into hypotheses, thus scaffolding this process for individuals. 
 
The statement of private theories seemed to fuel the generation of questions.  When team members shared their questions, they found overlap, as well as unique questions. As one person put it, "My questions seem to be more abstract because I know less than the other team members, but I really think all the questions are cool." Their questions were fact finding, theory building, and higher level thinking questions. This suggests that learners were engaged early on in thinking about the situation in terms of interaction and relationships. Participants helped each other to answer questions as well as to pursue answers to their own questions. 
 
The evolving explanations of learners within one module were examined to determine the extent to which content knowledge improved. The interplay of ideas and opportunities to re-examine one's own ideas seemed to provoke ongoing research and formulation of explanations within the ESS framework. As one participant put it, "Working with the ESS Diagram and with the other teachers has helped me organize many of the facts and theories I already had." 
 
All participants reported in a course survey that they developed their content knowledge, e.g. "Yes. I learned a lot about the connections between earth science systems, the PBL method of learning, some current environmental problems." Many reported having used PBL with students before the end of the course, e.g. "I have tried one of the PBL lessons I developed for this course with my students. They responded better than I expected. As a result I find myself increasing my expectations." All felt confident in using the PBL process and expected to raise their expectations for student outcomes, e.g.  "I expect the students to be able to think for themselves more. I have tried to incorporate activities to allow students to express their personal ideas, but I have noticed that it is so ingrained in them to rely directly on books and the teacher, that they really struggle with this. I do want to continue to expose them to these types of activities so that maybe some of them can realize their capabilities and knowledge." This is an indirect indicator of their own increased confidence with the subject matter and PBL and their sense that it results in strong outcomes. One person reported, "I am very glad I was able to take this course and feel I have profited greatly from it.  I have been asked to put together a presentation about either PBL Units.  I will be sharing a lot of what I have learned and experienced with the entire science department here." 
 
Conclusions 
This course was designed to support learners' successful use of PBL to learn ESS in an online environment. Based on the authors' experiences with PBL in face-to-face situations, and prior experience with collaborative structures on line, the timing, resources and spaces within the course were designed to support maximum engagement with PBL associated with strong content knowledge gains. 
 
The success of this course in achieving its content knowledge objective suggests that PBL can serve as an online professional development tool. The ease of assessing success using the byproducts of the PBL process supports the notion that PBL supports iterative learning. 
 
Where the byproducts were not available, it was a result of a participant being unable to participate in a timely fashion. The relationship of the course structure and timing requirements for individual and team activities that build on each other on a scheduled basis with the opportunities for asynchronous, self-paced participation pose a dilemma we continue to struggle with. 
 
Some important course design features may have contributed to the successful use of PBL in this online environment. The opportunity to use the PBL process in a warm-up situation was pivotal according to self-reports by several participants. The multiple scenarios provided "practice sets" for developing ESS knowledge and PBL skill over the course period. Both these conditions were identified by participants as important in their knowledge-building. 
 
 
Implications 
Although these results suggest that PBL is a viable professional development tool for content knowledge development, the degree to which the design of the
site and the course affected learning outcomes needs to be examined further.  
What were design features that support the successful use of PBL in the online environment? How was PBL altered in this environment, if at all?  Timing, expectations, discussion spaces, the interplay of individual and team
activities all seemed to have a bearing on learner engagement. These factors will be examined in an upcoming study replicating the course at six other institutions. 
 
While the redundancy of the multiple scenarios was planned and seemed valuable, the number of scenarios is still under examination. If one of the four were eliminated, would learners be able to go into even greater depth in their analyses, exploring interactions, and applying their knowledge to classroom PBL units?  
 
Although there were gains in content area knowledge and Earth Systems thinking, we think even more sophisticated reasoning is possible. The combination of the ESS diagram as a tool for examining interactions has been used successfully in previous courses. The combination of the ESS diagram and PBL seemed to extend learners' thinking into policy areas. We are considering with replacing or extending the ESS diagram into causal mapping to examine relationships over time and perhaps better support policy recommendations based on ESS knowledge. 
 
Summary 
In Problem Based Learning, learners make their thinking visible, from revealing private theories to formulating hypotheses and problem statements, from doing research to building explanations. The online environment can be structured to take full advantage of this tool to create a successful knowledge-building environment. 

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