PBL Curriculum Strategies
These words are formulated by Freire in Education for critical consciousness. We could formulate similar hypotheses: while all problem and project based learning (PBL) transitions involve change, not all PBL changes result in more comprehensive transition
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1. PBL CURRICULUM STRATEGIES From Course Based PBL to a Systemic PBL Approach
While all transition involves change, not all change results in transition. Changes can occur within a single historical epoch that do not profoundly affect it in any way. (Freire, 1973) INTRODUCTION
These words are formulated by Freire in Education for critical consciousness. We could formulate similar hypotheses: while all problem and project based learning (PBL) transitions involve change, not all PBL changes result in more comprehensive transition. If academic staff and students are not critically aware of the transition from a lecture-based curriculum to a problem and project based curriculum, contradictions increase between ways of knowing, acting and being in the traditional curriculum and an emerging curriculum. The transition might be experienced as a tidal wave with glance moments of understanding the new practice but with emotional drawbacks to a safer position in the known curriculum and a stepping back to known practices. Freire highlights a very important aspect as the conceptual understanding of what changes that are made and under which transition processes will be very different depending on the context of the critical reflection and the creation of new meaning. There might be a change in the curriculum, but the effect of the change will depend on the degree of implementation at course or institutional level, and on the critical reflection on the learning of knowing, acting and being as objectives for the curriculum. Freire refers to the concepts of transition and change – transition in terms of the process of changing fundamental values, change in terms of single actions. In the literature, the concept of transformation also occurs in combination with change. Transformation is often used in studies on higher education to indicate a complete change from macro- to micro level. All the concepts of transition, change and transformation are often used synonymously without defining the concepts theoretically but much more by examples or by overall change strategies (Kotter, 1995; Reidsema, Hadgraft, Cameron, & King, 2013) or how involvement and engagement can be created in a transformation process (Eckel & Kezar, 2003; Kezar, 2013). An important part of a transition process is to have a conceptual understanding of the university roles and the overall aim of the curricula. Recent research on types of A. Guerra et al. (Eds.), PBL in Engineering Education, 1–12. © 2017 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
A. KOLMOS
university changes has identified three very different university types, see Figure 1 (Jamison, Kolmos, & Holgaard, 2014): 1. A mode 1 academic university with emphasis on theoretical learning and the process of knowing. This is the “traditional” university with a range of parallel courses in a modular system of which some are mandatory and others elective. Basically, the curriculum is aimed at the learning of theory. 2. A mode 2 market driven university focusing much more on relevant knowledge for employers a
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