Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
discuss progress to date, results achieved, and problems still to be resolved.
The managers then return to the workplace to take further action. The two
phases of reflection (discussion) and action continue to alternate throughout
the life of the learning period.
The Pedagogy of Problem-Based Learning
To translate Revan's description of action learning into terms applicable to the IS
students' exploration, we have chosen to substantiate the action-learning context with
problem-based learning (PBL) activities (Savery & Duffy, 1995; Albanese & Mitchell, 1993;
Engel, 1991; Ryan, 1993) as follows:
1.
Students, divided into small groups of three to five members and assigned a facilitator,
are encouraged to perceive themselves as managers of their own in terms of time,
material resources, and complexity of the problems that can be handled one at a time
by the group.
2.
Students are made aware that initially they will not possess enough prior information
to solve the problem at hand or to clarify the scenario immediately.
3.
Students are challenged to construct a solution to an often ill-structured problem
chosen according to some concrete, open-ended situations.
4.
Students are reminded that they must identify, locate, and use appropriate resources,
and ask questions referred to as learning issues on the various aspects of the problem.
These learning issues help the IS students realize what knowledge they require, and
thus focus their learning efforts and establish a means for integrating the information
they acquire.
It is expected that the IS students' groups generally have to iterate through some
relevant stages of activities: analysis, research, and reporting, with discussion and feedback
from peers and the facilitator at each stage:
•
Analysis
: Throughout this stage, students organize their ideas and prior knowledge
related to the problem, and start defining its requirements. This helps them devise a
specific statement of the problem. Meanwhile, they are urged to pose learning issues,
defining what they know and what they have to know. This helps them assign
responsibilities for research, eliciting and activating their existing knowledge as a
crucial step in learning new information.
•
Research
: Throughout this stage, students collect necessary information on specific
learning issues raised by the group. They may conduct library searches, seek sources
on the Internet, collect data, and interview knowledgeable authorities. More impor-
tantly, when they come to realize the complexity and texture of the problem, they become
their own experts to teach one another in the group; they use their learning to reexamine
the problem. In the process, they are constructing knowledge by anchoring their new
findings on their existing knowledge base.
•
Reporting
: After a specified period of time, students reconvene and reassess the
problem based on their newly acquired knowledge. Once the students feel that the
problem task has been successfully completed, they discuss the problem in relation to
similar and dissimilar problems in order to form generalizations. Meanwhile, the
facilitator's feedback should help students clarify basic information, focus their
