- Characteristics of Good Problems
- Engages students’ interest. Motivate them. Connect to real world.
- Make decisions/judgments based on facts, information, reasoning,
etc. May be multi-stage as information is gathered or provided.
- Complex enough to require cooperation (collaboration) in a group
setting. Divide and conquer strategies are not as effective.
- Initial questions are open-ended; group discussion is encouraged.
- Content objectives are embedded in the problem and situation.
- Steps to development
- Choose central idea/concept/principle to be taught. What “end of
unit” question might be asked about it?
- Think of real world context for it. Develop a story around the
question/problem.
- Introduce problem to allow students to identify key learning
issues.
- Write teacher guide for using the problem in a course.
- Identify resources for students.
(From Barbara J Duch, Writing problems
for deeper understanding. Chapter 5 in Duch, Groh, and Allen, The
power of problem-based learning.)
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