PBL.....Why does everyone hate it so much????

[Leine4]

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Hi all. I am probably going to be attending a school with a PBL curriculum and everyone tells me how much it sucks. What makes PBL so bad?

Thanks! 🙂

 

[MsPurtell]

I saw PBL as something that took loads of time to accomplish very little learning.

Hi all. I am probably going to be attending a school with a PBL curriculum and everyone tells me how much it sucks. What makes PBL so bad?

Thanks! 🙂

 

[xenomblack]

it's because you teach yourself dentistry
some people are good at it, some people suck at it. period.

 

[tinker bell]

If you pay a hefty tuition fee, there better be some instructors who are employed to teach you something. Why pay money for self-learning?

 

[crazy_sherm]

You ever have a bad lab partner or be working on a group project where half the people don't pull their weight? Imagine doing that for 4 years. That's why PBL sucks.

 

[digitlnoize]

I think it all depends on the way PBL is done and how you learn. I had PBL in my undergrad Organic Chemistry class and it was amazing. I learned the material MUCH better than I would have otherwise. It actually helps me to have weaker group members because then I can explain things to them, and that process solidifies things in my head.

I've been accepted to LECOM-Bradenton a medical school in Florida whose curriculum is only PBL. We got to sit in on an PBL session at our interview and it was wonderful! They meet in groups for 2 hrs, 3 days a week. The point of the meeting is to talk about what they've been studying, and to identify new "learning issues" that they have to tackle individually before the next meeting. It's all done in the context of a clinical case that you're working on to tie the concepts into the "real world".

Their board scores have been very good, as have the board scores from most of the PBL-type med schools. I think the real world applications and the constant review works much better (for me) than just reading a pharmacology book cover to cover then not touching for a year and a half (which is what is done at traditional lecture-based med schools).

Not sure how it would apply in dentistry though...

 

[armorshell]

I think the real world applications and the constant review works much better (for me) than just reading a pharmacology book cover to cover then not touching for a year and a half (which is what is done at traditional lecture-based med schools).

If you really believe this is what happens at non-PBL schools, you are seriously deluding yourself.

 

[aphistis]

I think it all depends on the way PBL is done and how you learn. I had PBL in my undergrad Organic Chemistry class and it was amazing. I learned the material MUCH better than I would have otherwise. It actually helps me to have weaker group members because then I can explain things to them, and that process solidifies things in my head.

I've been accepted to LECOM-Bradenton a medical school in Florida whose curriculum is only PBL. We got to sit in on an PBL session at our interview and it was wonderful! They meet in groups for 2 hrs, 3 days a week. The point of the meeting is to talk about what they've been studying, and to identify new "learning issues" that they have to tackle individually before the next meeting. It's all done in the context of a clinical case that you're working on to tie the concepts into the "real world".

Their board scores have been very good, as have the board scores from most of the PBL-type med schools. I think the real world applications and the constant review works much better (for me) than just reading a pharmacology book cover to cover then not touching for a year and a half (which is what is done at traditional lecture-based med schools).

Not sure how it would apply in dentistry though...

I don't wish to discredit your extensive experience, but some of us have spent a little more time with graduate-level PBL than watching a single session of carefully-chosen students and carefully-chosen topics, with the explicit goal of making favorable impressions on interviewees. You'll see once you start med school. Everyone starts out excited and enthusiastic, but a year from now your "PBL research" will be the same as everyone else's--20 hurried minutes finding authoritative-looking articles on Google, and then printing them off to use as handouts, so you can be done with it and get back to studying for all the real classes you have.

I know that sounds cynical, but I don't mean it that way, and I'm not putting down your study habits or intelligence, either. It's just how PBL inevitably works in the real world, outside the covers of education journals.

 

[dentstd]

PBL's a good thing. The process of researching and synthesizing your own thoughts/ideas helps the human mind remember things for much longer than your typical class. It helps prevent all that memorizing and forgetting business. Our gripes about PBL has been misassociated with USC's various problems, and it's unfortunate.

Did I mention that Harvard uses PBL? Did I mention that they've been doing it since the late 70's? I also believe that Case Western Dental's moving towards PBL in the near future.

 

[MsPurtell]

This was exactly my pbl experience.

I don't wish to discredit your extensive experience, but some of us have spent a little more time with graduate-level PBL than watching a single session of carefully-chosen students and carefully-chosen topics, with the explicit goal of making favorable impressions on interviewees. You'll see once you start med school. Everyone starts out excited and enthusiastic, but a year from now your "PBL research" will be the same as everyone else's--20 hurried minutes finding authoritative-looking articles on Google, and then printing them off to use as handouts, so you can be done with it and get back to studying for all the real classes you have.

I know that sounds cynical, but I don't mean it that way, and I'm not putting down your study habits or intelligence, either. It's just how PBL inevitably works in the real world, outside the covers of education journals.

And, to the guy who was impressed by what he saw at some school....I think pbl works for some people. I think it worked for one guy in my group who used to run his mouth for the whole group. It works for people who like to think they are teaching the rest of the group, while others painfully endure the hours.

Maybe pbl could be optional. They could get all these types who like to talk at people and put them in a room and let them learn by making their noise. Most of us need some peace and quiet, our books and other non-verbal learning sources to do our best.

 

[briansle]

Hi all. I am probably going to be attending a school with a PBL curriculum and everyone tells me how much it sucks. What makes PBL so bad?

Thanks! 🙂

PBL isn't bad. PBL has definitely made me more prone to read journal articles, random case studies just for fun.

Granted what others say is true: "Why go through all the trouble of finding the answers myself, when someone can just hand them to me and not waste my time?"

After all, we dental students got tons of lab work to do and really don't have the luxury of "learning for the sake of learning."

I find PBL to be academia's idea of a "Learning Utopia." Where self motivated students can learn and help each other. Sort of like a hippie commune.

But we live in a capitalist society where want the answers quick and easy. The most efficient method possible.

PBL may fall like the Soviet Empire and Capitalism(lectures) prevail once again. Or PBL will modify itself to become more socialistic and become what Modern Europe is today.

Whatever the case, PBL is a new concept (like Galileo's concept of the earth revolving around the sun) and with most new ideas it will be met with skepticism, playa haters, or just burned at the stake.

 

[djeffreyt]

Lots a great opinions. I'll add my own.

There is nothing wrong with the traditional methods of teaching and learning. They have worked for ages and the world has steadily moved forward. If you want to make some minor argument about the horrific state of the world...feel free, but all I'm saying is that the methodology of the past has proven itself effective.

As to PBL...I have a little training in it since I was a teacher and PBL is really a pretty old concept that any decent teacher training program or school training program is teaching as an option. I have used the method to some degree in various settings, and it does work. Students do retain information better and often learn concepts in far greater detail when the students are motivated, but the disadvantage is that it takes longer to get the same amount of information across to students and in fully integrated PBL, students can miss the mark. It's very simple for a group of students to begin to work and by the end, if the lesson plan was supposed to engrain objectives A,B,C,D, and E into them, The students have learned A phenomenally, B and E just as well as if you'd just told them in a 20 minute lecture, and totally forgot to think about C and D. The same can easily be said of traditional methods, but at least with traditional methods the students can look back and see what the objectives were...some forms of PBL never allow the actual objectives of the lesson to become transparant.

Another issue is that studies have shown PBL isn't equally effective for all forms of subject matter and in all cases. Of course you can find any number of studies to contradict what I just said, and you can also find a lot that confirm what I just said...but the fact of the matter is that as subject matter changes, PBL cannot be expected to remain the same and retain the exact same results. For a field like dentistry that has a lot of science, aesthetics, interpersonal communication, business, etc associated with its education, it can be a little simplistic to say, PBL works for everything just fine and just as well and is the singularly best method to teach all of it, from pathology and dental materials to small business economics and biochemistry.

Finally, I can't understand why PBL is referred to so much like it is singular entity that is the same everywhere. The PBL I saw at USC is a very different, somewhat ornately structured form that I have never used or seen other schools use. PBL is pretty unstandardized. It has a general conception that every school and every professor twists, perverts, restructures, rethinks, and rewrites to fit whatever they believe will work best. PBL at Harvard is probably quite different than PBL in a classroom at Stanford, or San Diego State, or Michigan, or a high school classroom, or USC, or whereever you go. What student A experienced in classroom G is not always what student M experienced in Classroom N on the other side of the ocean. Unfortunately, PBL set up in a particular way is something that needs to personally be experienced to understand if it is gonna work, and it won't always work for you even if at first it does or if for one subject it did.

There is my 2 cents

 

[digitlnoize]

Oy vey...you guys are mean over here...

To clear some things up. I actually have alot of PBL experience. It was used at my undergrad institution in various classes, particuarly Organic Chemistry. I was also a TA for orgo after I took it and found out that the PBL based orgo class did far better on the ACS examination than the non PBL orgo. I also had to learn how to teach in PBL, so I know how it works...thanks.

The session I saw at my interview was not specially set up for us. You could tell it was just another normal day. It was also not run the way I've heard PBL is ran at other schools as you have described here. It is not looking up research articles then presenting them in small groups. Far from it.

And yes, I know that at many schools students do not revist much of the material they learn until it is time for board review...pharm was just an example...

 

[rarm1]

I would agree with most of what was said:
1. it varies by location and method used
2. the teaches must be trained to use it... most aren't
3. some subjects are better taught by other means
4. multiple problems combined - dental problems, medical problems, ethical problems benefits from a PBL method,
5.all involved must be willing to give it their all... you learn any thing by the effect you put into it.

As professionals we are and have to be continous learners... a lecture won't do that... a one time CE wont do that... but learning a concept of how to approach a case and solve problems and use reference will... a case based problem(s) orientated system should do that.

It takes extra time for the teaches... especially to avoid missing subjects...
it is hard in large classes.

In our residency, we review cases with the residents presenting... We have a team for the complex dental/implant cases reviewing medical/dental/ethical/finance etc; and i review the special care/medically compromised/OM pts...
we learn by doing and being mentored...

to avoid missing a subject... I still have all the topics that were covered in lecture type seminars and check it off as we review cases... at this time of the year I review the list and may occassionally have to give a didactic.

It was a waste of time to lecture on cardiac pts in august when we treated a dozen before then,,,, the same with the preradiation/oncology.

some schools do it better than others.. they have their faculty learn....

if done correctly it can stimulate learning not only of the students, but of the faculty.

just some random thoughts

 

[IWuvTeef]

I don't wish to discredit your extensive experience, but some of us have spent a little more time with graduate-level PBL than watching a single session of carefully-chosen students and carefully-chosen topics, with the explicit goal of making favorable impressions on interviewees. You'll see once you start med school. Everyone starts out excited and enthusiastic, but a year from now your "PBL research" will be the same as everyone else's--20 hurried minutes finding authoritative-looking articles on Google, and then printing them off to use as handouts, so you can be done with it and get back to studying for all the real classes you have.

I know that sounds cynical, but I don't mean it that way, and I'm not putting down your study habits or intelligence, either. It's just how PBL inevitably works in the real world, outside the covers of education journals.

As a fellow IUSD student, I'd say you hit the nail on the head on this one. With PBL, just "git 'er done" and move on. It surely isn't something to stay up all night pondering. But, IUSD isn't 100% PBL. I'd say it's 65% didactic/35% PBL the 1st 2 yrs.

 

[Lidopaine82]

I don't wish to discredit your extensive experience, but some of us have spent a little more time with graduate-level PBL than watching a single session of carefully-chosen students and carefully-chosen topics, with the explicit goal of making favorable impressions on interviewees. You'll see once you start med school. Everyone starts out excited and enthusiastic, but a year from now your "PBL research" will be the same as everyone else's--20 hurried minutes finding authoritative-looking articles on Google, and then printing them off to use as handouts, so you can be done with it and get back to studying for all the real classes you have.

I know that sounds cynical, but I don't mean it that way, and I'm not putting down your study habits or intelligence, either. It's just how PBL inevitably works in the real world, outside the covers of education journals.

amen, that's how it works at case.

 

[UCSF2012]

I don't wish to discredit your extensive experience, but some of us have spent a little more time with graduate-level PBL than watching a single session of carefully-chosen students and carefully-chosen topics, with the explicit goal of making favorable impressions on interviewees. You'll see once you start med school. Everyone starts out excited and enthusiastic, but a year from now your "PBL research" will be the same as everyone else's--20 hurried minutes finding authoritative-looking articles on Google, and then printing them off to use as handouts, so you can be done with it and get back to studying for all the real classes you have.

I know that sounds cynical, but I don't mean it that way, and I'm not putting down your study habits or intelligence, either. It's just how PBL inevitably works in the real world, outside the covers of education journals.

Is that PBL or is that students trying to study their own way and just try to get the PBL part of their lesson over with, putting forth minimal effort to get the requirements done with.

 

[aphistis]

Is that PBL or is that students trying to study their own way and just try to get the PBL part of their lesson over with, putting forth minimal effort to get the requirements done with.

Yes to both; that's the whole point.

 

[Sunny_1225]

You ever have a bad lab partner or be working on a group project where half the people don't pull their weight? Imagine doing that for 4 years. That's why PBL sucks.

You are the biggest ******.

This is not what PBL is lilke AT ALL.

PBL is instead of sitting in a lecture room, you just read the text book yourself.

Instead of going to 8 different classes (I'm usting the example for the boards part 1), (anat/hist/bioch/physi/micb/path/dentanat/occl) etc, you just go through 8 textbooks on your own.

 

[armorshell]

You are the biggest ******.

This is not what PBL is lilke AT ALL.

PBL is instead of sitting in a lecture room, you just read the text book yourself.

Instead of going to 8 different classes (I'm usting the example for the boards part 1), (anat/hist/bioch/physi/micb/path/dentanat/occl) etc, you just go through 8 textbooks on your own.

I'm with you on sherm being a ******, but if PBL is just reading textbooks then where does the whole "Problem based" thing come in?

Don't you have PBL sessions or some nonsense?

 

[Columbia07]

Look, PBL is a case-based way to learn. You are given a case and the information within the case helps you focus your research and learn the material.

It really does not matter if you have one or a few people in your PBL group who are not going to put in as much effort as everyone else. You will still learn the material if you actively seek it out.

Now, PBL/small group discussion/etc are not new concepts. Small group discussion has been around much longer than the lecture model. Let's not forget that lectures are new (around 14th century) and were only created to educate the masses. Lectures are a poor way to convey material to students, but universities/schools have yet to find an alternative.

The motto "git er done and move on" is unfortunately felt by many students in the PBL system; however, this is not the approach one should take. For one, you're just wasting your time sitting through cases (why do it if you're not going to learn to be a better diagnostician), and two, it solidifies the fact that most students can care less about problem solving and more about the outcome of exams and memorizing material (usually because it's much easier).

To say PBL is "just reading books on your own" is a very ignorant comment. You can say that about any educational model, lecture or PBL based. PBL is a way to actively learn and a lecture-based model is a way to passively learn. Pick your poison.

 

[rarm1]

Look, PBL is a case-based way to learn. You are given a case and the information within the case helps you focus your research and learn the material.

It really does not matter if you have one or a few people in your PBL group who are not going to put in as much effort as everyone else. You will still learn the material if you actively seek it out.

Now, PBL/small group discussion/etc are not new concepts. Small group discussion has been around much longer the lecture model. Let's not forget that lectures are new (around 14th century) and were only created to educate the masses. Lectures are a poor way to convey material to students, but universities/schools have yet to find an alternative.

The motto "git er done and move on" is unfortunately felt by many students in the PBL system; however, this is not the approach one should take. For one, you're just wasting your time sitting through cases when (why do it if you're not going to learn to be a better diagnostician), and two, it solidifies the fact that most students can care less about problem solving and more about the outcome of exams and memorizing material (usually because it's much easier).

To say PBL is "just reading books on your own" is a very ignorant comment. You can say that about any educational model, lecture or PBL based. PBL is a way to actively learn and a lecture-based model is a way to passively learn. Pick your poison.

excellent view point.... case/problem based learning... makes you think, not just spit out facts you will forget... starts you on a life time of continued learning....

you sound like the type of residents we look for.... thinkers... team players

 

[briansle]

Do specialties like OMFS used PBL type learning more?

I assume you're learning more by case based model than straight lectures

 

[Turnerjo13]

If you pay a hefty tuition fee, there better be some instructors who are employed to teach you something. Why pay money for self-learning?

I agree with ^^^. But in one (only one) of our classes it is often a better use of our time to quietly read and study the class notes rather than go to the lecture. A lot of us are finding that we understand it better on our own than with a professor reading their slides to us. This brings up a dilemma. I feel guilty for skipping class but I think I retain it better when I do it on my own.

 

[Peterpatient]

1st . why you pay so much to study for yourself

2nd . because of the first , i paid another person to help me study the case

3rd . my pbl is really bad .
a. the instructors are really bad . they are there just to watch and ask . but its very likely the question ambigous , and the responses are not always decent . if its not unconstructive , they will ask questions heavier than the instructor degree . like , you know , maybe some of them will have an exam for their degree

b. bad peer group . medical college students here are "posh", 95% of them, who hate to interact unpopular students. unpopular students . like student who never achieve anything respectable for themselves ( new phones , expensive shoes and dresses , never get below BC grade , have so much energy to party and study, etc ) . i live outside first world . malaysia and singapore are included in first world i think . (because malaysian student here is one of those kind of "posh" . the reason they studied here because , they said " we are poor and we must accept this s###ty life " ) .

so back to number 1 , all of those must be paid expensively.

"PBL" is being done here in that way i mentioned . somewhere in third world asia country med college

i hate pbl because elder think they can use our brain for them. and still insisting they are doing it right. the wrong implementation is likely enough

 

[Peterpatient]

sorry if i am not pc , but being unpopular makes people in college here think that i dont deserve pc from them

pc = politically correct