Problem-based learning beyond borders: Impact and potential for university-level human rights education

Abstract

This article outlines a cutting-edge pedagogy I have branded problem-based learning beyond borders, which I have employed in a wide variety of human rights courses and in developing curriculum for two graduate programs in human rights. It involves engaging students, faculty, and community members in real-world problems usually raised by the community members. This pedagogy could be employed successfully in a range of human rights courses and programs but faculty members are often reluctant to adopt a new pedagogy, especially when it involves shifting their pedagogical ethos. So here I offer a number of compelling examples of this pedagogy drawn from my human rights classes, and then I turn to the question of best practices for encouraging other human rights faculty members to adopt such cutting-edge active-learning pedagogies. I end with some practical advice that should be applicable when encouraging faculty to experiment with such innovative pedagogies.

Notes

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the members of the Executive Committee of the Online Graduate Programs in Human Rights Practice at the University of Arizona for helping me to reflect more deeply about this material: Leonard Hammer, Mette Brogden, Seánna Howard, Jeannine Relly, and Phyllis Taoua.

Notes

1 By no means am I suggesting that this pedagogy is completely unique. It shares important characteristics with, and I have learned a great deal from, similar approaches, including participatory action learning and action research (PALAR), which has been used in several contexts in South Africa and elsewhere (see Wood and Zuber-Skerritt 2013; Zuber-Skerritt 2015); clinical education, especially when taught from a PBL perspective; and immersive education, including some role playing.

2 Doyle (2011) and Weimer (2013) provided dozens of small steps that can be taken to move from being a lecturer to being a facilitator.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William Paul Simmons

William Paul Simmons is professor of gender and women’s studies and director of the online Human Rights Practice graduate program at the University of Arizona. His books include Human Rights Law and the Marginalized Other (2011), An-archy and Justice: An Introduction to Emmanuel Levinas’ Political Thought (2003), and the forthcoming Joyful Human Rights (University of Pennsylvania Press). With Carol Mueller, he edited Binational Human Rights: The U.S.–Mexico Experience (2014). He is currently working on a project in Niger, Nigeria, and Mozambique to empower people affected by leprosy using international human rights documents. He has served as a consultant on human rights and social justice issues in The Gambia (West Africa), Niger, Nigeria, China, Mexico, and the United States. He was the founding director of the master’s program in Social Justice and Human Rights at Arizona State University.