Studies of problem-based learning suggest that it is comparable, though not always superior, to more traditional instruction in teaching facts and information. However, this approach has been found to be better in supporting flexible problem solving, reasoning skills, and generating accurate hypotheses and coherent explanations.
design challenges need to be carefully planned, and they emphasized the importance of dynamic feedback.
When students have no prior experience with inquiry learning, they can have difficulty generating meaningful driving questions and logical arguments and may lack background knowledge to make sense of the inquiry.
Absolutely true. I discovered this when I used inquiry-based methods with my students in Qatar who were used to rote learning. They truly did not know where to start. They first needed to learn *how* to be inquisitive.
Requiring students to track and defend their thinking focused them on learning and connecting concepts in their design work
All the research arrives at the same conclusion: There are significant benefits for students who work together on learning activities.
groups outperform individuals on learning tasks and that individuals who work in groups do better on later individual assessments.
In successful group learning, teachers pay careful attention to the work process and interaction among students.
"It is not enough to simply tell students to work together. They must have a reason to take one another's achievement seriously.
She and her colleagues developed Complex Instruction, one of the best-known approaches, which uses carefully designed activities requiring diverse talents and interdependence among group members.
Vocational Education meets Research in the dynamic classroom of Linda Darling-Hammond, 2008. The students are doing the research, teaching and learning. They control their own destiny and they are taking the world by storm! They are not waiting to be taught, they are teaching each other and themselves as teams of researchers.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2008). Powerful learning: what we know about teaching for understanding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.