Using the ‘Grieving’ Process and Learning Journals to Evaluate Students' Responses to Problem-Based Learning in an Undergraduate Geography Curriculum

Abstract

Problem-based learning (PBL) works with a series of problems that form the syllabus for a course or the basis of a curriculum. Learning occurs through the definition of the problem and its attempted resolution. PBL is challenging but offers much potential for geography with its interdisciplinary character. The challenge to geography lecturers is to become facilitators of student learning. This paper outlines an approach to PBL in a single module in the first year of an undergraduate degree programme. The approach involved cycles of learning and employed learning journals as a means of encouraging student reflection. These journals show how students struggled to come to terms with PBL and how it challenged their conceptions of learning. Woods's (1994) ‘grieving process’ is a helpful way of understanding this process. The students did seem to make the transition from ‘teach me’ to ‘help me to learn’ and to appreciate the benefits of PBL.

Keywords:

• Problem-based learning
• learning journal
• reflection
• geography

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank those students of geography at Salford University who allowed their learning journals to be used for this paper. The author is also grateful to the team at the Education Development Unit of Salford University for its support during the course. Thanks are also extended to Bernard Lisewski, Andrew Warren, Ian Livingstone and John Bradbeer for their comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript.