Teachers from the School of Public Health & Primary Care (SPHPC) at the College of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences (CMNHS) were treated to a 2-day workshop on Problem Based Learning (PBL). A select few teachers from the School of Education (SOE) at the College of Humanities & Education (CHE) also attended. Professor Karen Goodnough from Memorial University of Newfoundland was the facilitator and paced the 2-day workshop with the help of case studies for participants to think over and discuss. The main objective of the workshop was to develop an understanding of the nature of PBL and how to design, implement, and facilitate PBL experiences. Some 30-40 participants took part in the workshop. As part of her facilitation, a few gems were shared about PBL, for example, “the principal idea behind problem-based is … that the starting point for learning should be a problem, a query, or a puzzle that the learner wishes to solve” (Boud, 1987: p. 13).

The Centre for Learning & Teaching Enhancement (CLTE) with special assistance from the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) organized the PBL workshop. Following this, SPHPC and SOE will continue to engage with the Centre for Flexible & E-Learning (CFEL) to further develop blended courses & programmes with the possibility for PBL assessments to be introduced into their courses. Overall, participants found the workshop very useful, with some acknowledging the fact that perhaps they had been using PBL all the while, though not really understanding it as PBL. Professor Goodnough was happy with the participant engagement over the 2 days and wished the teachers the very best with their future PBL endeavours. CFEL’s Learning Designers were also in attendance and they will be assisting content specialists implement PBL (if applicable) moving forward into 2020.

Participants at the PBL Workshop, 27 & 28 June 2019 @ the Nasinu Campus