Issue 2, June 2006

Welcome to the summer issue of FACiLiTATE ? A PBLNetwork Newsletter. Since our first newsletter the committee have beenbusy setting up a structure for the network. A number of verysuccessful training and workshops were organised by the committee. Weare interested in finding out your views on what training and/orworkshops would help you in your PBL practice, so read on to find outhow you can help us help you.

Training and Workshops - Over forty PBLpractitioners attended the PBL Training and Workshops held in UCD onWednesday, 17th May, 2006. Three parallel sessions were run:-

Getting Started with PBL - This training course was targettedat people interested in implementing PBL. The emphasis was on theparticipants experiencing the PBL process. The feedback from attendeeswas very positive, 74% of those attending returned our feedback forms,have a look at what they thought of the day.

Table 1: Getting Started with PBL Participant Feedback

When asked what aspect of the day they found most useful, 55% ofthe participants said they found experiencing PBL as a student mostuseful.
All participants are interested in undertaking further trainingwith 90% saying that assessment is the immediate area they are mostinterested in.

Assessment in PBL - This objective of this workshop was to facilitate the discussion about assessment among existing PBL practitioners.

Feedback from both groups came in the form of answers to questions posed to the groups:

Question: What ways did you share PBL Practice?

- Through presentations
- Through discussion
- By networking

.Question: Any ideas for further collaboration?

- Further study days
- Module Design
- Problem Design
- Large class ( >40 ) PBL (relative to number of tutors)
- Mentoring on-line & through networking
- Training of facilitators / tutors
- Research
- Sharing of practice both National and International.

Question: How do you plan to share the work you did today with the network?

- Discussion Forum / Moodle
- On-line dissemination of assessment methodology plus examples
- Criteria / Rubrics
- PBL Practitioner profile
- Collaboration on Problem Bank.

Library Workshop - The objective of this workshop was tofacilitate discussion among librarians working with PBL practitioners.90% of the participants returned our feedback forms.

Table 2: Library Workshop Participant Feedback

When asked what aspect of the workshop they found most useful,100% of the participants said they found the interaction withcolleagues to be most useful. The librarians felt that the Networkcould help them improve as PBL practitioners if the network:-
- Have Librarian on Steering Committee (44%)
- Organise workshops/seminars with both teaching staff & librarians together (44%)

PBL Modules

If you are interested in PBL in teaching and learning both UCD and DIThave specific modules on PBL, you can check out details of theseincluding content, credits, cost go to the Centres for Teaching andLearning at both UCD and DIT.

Survey - Training Needs Analysis

You can help us to help you by taking a few minutes to fill in ourTraining Needs Analysis Survey. The objective of the survey is to findout what are your most pressing training needs.

Conferences

A number of members are heading off to conferences during the summerpresenting their PBL research both to the national and internationalcommunity.
- The International Conference PBL 2006
- Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education
- Problem Based Learning in Speech Language Pathology Programmes
- AISHEWe look forward to hearing about the conferences in the next newsletter.