Student Perspective
Students are the biggest stakeholders when it comes to teaching methods in colleges and universities. Their success and satisfaction in both these institutions and their future endeavors depend on the foundational skills received by their professors. Students want to receive optimal education but at the same time carry their own agenda. Chris Shores, from USA Today, reports on opinions from college students on lecture halls. Many students have expressed their liking for lectures as they are actively choosing instead of being “forced” to participate, which gives them a greater sense of reward (Shores 1). Yet in Shores’s article, one student argues that there are occasional off-days where lectures are favorable because of the ability to tune-out of the lesson without direct reprimand (para. 3). This trend is critical to understanding the healthy medium that problem-based learning provides. Students find a liking to problem-based learning teaching in lectures because it keeps a good amount of anonymity yet engagement with material.
Mulryan-Kyne, St.Patrick’s College of Education affiliate, refers to a study conducted by Machemer and Crawford (2007) showing, “that students valued only those things that ensured positive grades in examinations and teaching approaches that they felt were oriented towards exam preparation” (182). The current traditional lecture style allows students to perform at a bare minimum level while still receiving a passing grade. Because students do not need to fully process information and only memorize key ideas, this method is not beneficial. Problem-based learning is liked amongst students because it engages them with material in class and properly contextualizes information for a richer understanding. It may seem like this requires more effort on the students side, which is not completely accurate. Problem-based learning can be implemented in lecture formatted classes that it does not require that much more work from students but does produce a different and greater outcome.
