March 31, 2017, the PBL Academy was invited to the half-year meeting for student guidance arranged by the central student guidance office, see http://www.aau.dk/uddannelser/studievejledning/ . The theme for the presentation was how study-guides can help students overcome challenges of PBL. In the presentation the focus was not on providing tools and tricks for PBL as the study guidance office has in fact provided a “tool-box” for student counsellors and students, see http://www.aau.dk/uddannelser/studievejledning/vejledning/studieteknik/.
The focus in the presentation was the importance of questioning and providing enough insight in the situation to actually be able to identify what the PBL challenge for the person in question is. This is necessary in order to be able to coach the student in the right direction (for him/her). Seven challenges were emphasised: 1) Insecurity in the role of a self-directed learner 2) Having expected more freedom in the self-directed learning environment 3) Lack of self-efficacy when comparing ones one’s knowledge to the sum of others 4) Lack of synergy in social relations 5) Loosing the sense of individual learning objectives and outcomes as being a part of a group 6) Being open for critique 7) Surface learning strategies. Slides can be found (in Danish) here.
After the presentation from the PBL Academy, we were invited to the next point of the agenda where Lars Holm Olsen from the central study guidance office presented how the student counsellors could use Dweck’s mindset theory, see for example the very short intro here: http://www.teachit.so/mindset.htm.
In sum, it was a very inspiring day discussing PBL from a student counsellor’s perspective.
