Six Outcomes – One (BIG) Assignment:

A Problem-Based Learning Approach

to Improving Information Fluency

Dr. Karen Ann Tarnoff

Assistant Dean for Assurance of Learning and Assessment

College of Business and Technology

The Scenario– Based on experience in class:

• HR majors do very well solving structured problems, BUT struggle solving unstructured/ambiguous problems.

• HR majors are very adept at applying templates and adapting processes, BUT struggle creating complex systems/processes from scratch.

– Reality:• HR managers are rarely faced with highly structured

problems that are easily solved with rote solutions.– Challenge:

• How do we teach our students this amorphous skill?

Planning and Staffing – MGMT 4560• Senior-level course for HR majors in the BBA program• Course learning objectives:

– Prepare, as part of a team, a staffing manual including job analysis and full recruiting and selection processes; and

– Contribute to the development of the written communication, teamwork, and critical thinking competencies as well as discipline-specific knowledge (i.e., knowledge about HRM) in accordance with the BBA program’s learning objectives for all undergraduate business students.

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An Intriguing Idea• “Problem-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered

pedagogy in which students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving. Students learn both thinking strategies (e.g., information fluency) and domain knowledge.”

• “The goals of PBL are to help students develop flexible knowledge, effective problem solving skills, self-directed learning, effective collaboration skills and intrinsic motivation.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning

An Intriguing Idea• The faculty member serves as a facilitator of learning

rather than as the “sage on the stage”• Faculty:

– Support– Guide– Model– Question– Encourage – Monitor learning process– Set standards for learning and evaluation criteria

Reengineering a Project Using PBL to focus on Information Fluency

• Project: Teams create a complete staffing manual for a position of their choosing in a Fortune 100 company

• Round one – provide a template for the manual’s contents• Round two – task students with drafting manual from scratch

and guide students week by week• Round three – provide a rubric at the beginning of the

semester for the evaluation of the manual’s contents• A HA! Round four – have the students create the rubric

(week by week) for the evaluation of the manual’s contents

Steps• Faculty develops complete rubric capturing content

knowledge to be covered – don’t share with students• Assign major project and explain that a rubric will be used to

grade• Provide the rubric’s first section to guide students• Warn students that they will be outside their comfort zone• Require students/teams to contribute a prescribed number of

rubric items each class/week instructing them to identify major content items they should cover in the project and on which they want to be graded. Award points for weekly contributions.

Steps

• Have students/teams post items to D2L discussion board weekly

• Set aside 5-10 minutes each class to share items and discuss

• Use instructor’s rubric to supplement students’ weekly contributions

• Compile contributions and post weekly to D2L in rubric format

• Have students/teams evaluate each others work using rubric in advance of submission

• Use rubric to grade and provide feedback to students

PBL, a Rubric and Information Fluency

• Questioning – identifying rubric items requires students to discover what they need to learn

• Seeking – finding information to address rubric dimensions identified by class and to include in manual

• Evaluating – determining what information from various sources should be included in the manual

• Using – putting the information discovered into a logical sequence of ideas and addressing all items in rubric

• Communicating – writing the manual in a professional format for use by HR managers

• Recognizing – appropriately citing sources utilized

Some PBL Resources• http://www.pbl.uci.edu/whatispbl.html• http://www.studygs.net/pbl.htm• http://online.sfsu.edu/rpurser/revised/pages/problem.htm• http://www.learning-theories.com/problem-based-learning-

pbl.html• http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ijpbl/