It is my first time. In the fall of the year 2012, I have made my first real teaching experience, including everything from course and syllabus design, the compilation of the readings, test preparation, to grading. I am thus inclined to call this project a ‘first-time project’ rather than ‘innovation project’, because there is nothing I am going to change or innovate in the way I teach. I began to teach. However, since I have never been taught PBL, it is also kind of innovative in the sense that I am not only changing sides – from student to teacher – but also try an innovative method.
The course I am giving – ‘Sustainability: European Approaches’ – is an offer to Bachelor students from Nazareth College Rochester (NY), who are not familiar with the method.
The reason for choosing PBL as the guiding method for this course, however, has multiple causes: first, PBL is an instructional method in which students learn about a subject in the context of complex, multifaceted, and realistic problems, just those that topics of sustainability used to circle around. Second, it builds upon students’ motivation as it engages in self‐directed learning and increases intrinsic motivation by developing flexible knowledge, collaboration and effective problem solving skills.
This paper will reflect upon the successes and shortcomings of PBL being applied in the course from: (1) How well could I as teacher implement the method into the course? (2) How well did students adopt the method? (3) What kind of problems with the method were raised by the students and why? (4) What kind of problems with the method did I as teacher encounter? (5) What will I change next time? (6) What worked well? (7) What will I maintain?
