From teacher to facilitator: a

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From teacher to facilitator a critical
component of problem-based learning
Welcome to a workshop led by Anne Fothergill and
Francis C Biley
University of Glamorgan Festival of Learning
July 3-4, 2003
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Intended learning outcomes Workshop
participants will be able to - Provide a
critique of traditional educational methods
- Have an awareness of how the teachers role is
required to change in the context of more
contemporary education methods such
problem-based learning, enquiry-based
learning, feminist pedagogy and
transformatory education - Identify a
number of strategies that can be employed
in order to promote facilitation
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• - brief overview of pbl
• educational theory of Dewey,
• Freire, Mezirow and Belenky
• workshop activity
• feedback

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In problem-based learning
...students learn how to learn by solving
problems. It provides them with a way to link
prior knowledge with new knowledge structures.
Problems are posed, and students identify what it
is that they need to know. Following a PBL
learning cycle, students identify what they need
to know, relate it to existing knowledge, apply
it to the problem and then evaluate the outcome.
Though a collaborative effort students socially
negotiate the learning, creating mental models
about the subject, and solve the problems
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The PBL Cycle
The Problem (concrete experience) a specific
example drawn from readings, films, fieldwork,
observations, or other sourcesInitial Analysis
(reflection, observation) defining the problem,
discussing, brainstorming, creating categories,
posing thought questions and rhetorical
questions, deciding what to research and how to
proceed Research (abstract conceptualization)
gathering information (library, internet,
interviews, collecting data),evaluating info,
explaining (teaching) to group members, building
models, drafting papers or proposals, creating
projects or prototypes Reporting (active
experimentation, presentation) communicating
info, models, conclusions, and/or recommendations
to teacher and students in form of simulations,
fieldwork, reports, projects, or other "product".
Reports lead students to consider new problems
(back to number 1)
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Dewey
...Education being a social process, the school
is simply that form of community life in which
all those agencies are concentrated that will be
most effective in bringing the child to share in
the inherited resources of the race, and to use
his own powers for social ends. I believe that
education, therefore, is a process of living and
not a preparation for future living. I believe
that the school must represent present life -
life as real and vital to the child as that
which he carries on in the home, in the
neighbourhood, or on the playground. I believe
that education which does not occur through
forms of life, or that are worth living for
their own sake, is always a poor substitute for
the genuine reality and tends to cramp and to
deaden...
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Womens Ways of Knowing - silence -
received knowledge - subjective knowledge
- procedural knowledge - constructed
knowledge
Belenky MF, Clinchy BM, Goldberger NR, Tarule
JM (1986) Women's ways of knowing. New York,
Basic Books
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Paulo Freire
Culture of silence - alienation and
oppression Banking education - consciousness
raising Mystification - hidden oppressive
cultures Disorienting dilemmas - challenging
views Conscientization - critical
consciousness Dialogical method - teacher/learner
mutuality Liberatory learning - challenge and
change the world Empowerment - result of
liberatory learning Humanisation - creating
culture, confronting oppression Transformation -
of the world, ?liberation
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Jack Mezirow
Transformatory education
the process of using prior interpretation of
the meaning of ones experience in order to
guide future action...
the process of making a new or revised
interpretation of the meaning of an experience
which guides subsequent understanding,
appreciation and action...
Instrumental learning - controlling the
environment or other people Communicative
learning - learning what people
mean, understanding values, ideals, feelings
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Jack Mezirow
- disorienting dilemma - self examination,
shame or guilt - critical assessment of
assumptions - acknowledging discontent may be
shared - exploring options for new roles and
actions - course of action - gaining new
knowledge and skills - testing new roles -
gaining confidence and competence -
reintegration of new patterns/perspectives
Mezirow J (1991) Transformative dimensions of
adult learning. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass
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Feminist pedagogy...
by experience, I do not mean the mere
registering of sensory data, or a purely mental
(psychological) relation to objects and events,
or the acquisition of skills and competencies by
accumulation or repeated exposure. I use the term
not in the individualistic, idiosyncratic sense
of something belonging to one and exclusively her
own, even though others might have similar
experiences but rather in the general sense of a
process by which, for all social
beings, subjectivity is constructed. Through that
process one places oneself or is placed in social
reality, and so perceived and comprehends as
subjective (referring to even originating in,
oneself) those relations - material, economic,
and interpersonal - which are in fact social,
and in a larger perspective, historical
Teresa de Lauretis, 1987
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A teacher Prepares - feeds - students for
future life, imparts de-contextualised
knowledge, maintains student silence and
isolation
A facilitator Replicates the real world,
contextualises knowledge, encourages dialogue,
challenges assumptions, confronts political
inequalities and promotes collegiality,
alternative views and empowerment
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The problem a systematic evaluation of a
problem-based learning program revealed a number
of issues, including that students felt that
teachers, in their role as facilitators, were
copping out of their responsibility and their
traditionally prescribed role, that of imparting
knowledge
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The solution?
Can we improve upon traditional education? How
can transformatory/facilitatory educational
practices be incorporated into curricula and
personal practice? What can we do to promote
transformatory/ facilitatory educational
practices?
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Workshop activity
Can we improve upon traditional
education? Working in small groups, provide a
concise statement addressing this issue. How
can transformatory/facilitatory educational
practices be incorporated into curricula and
personal practice? Brainstorm ways in which
changes can be made. What can we do to promote
transformatory/facilitatory educational
practices? In the main group, brainstorm and
list potential transformatory activities