Faculty Role Changes: From Lecturer to Facilitator

Most faculty experience overwhelming changes in relationships when converting from LD to PBL. Wilkerson and Hundert (1991), in a report of the unprecedented, full-scale implementation of PBL at Harvard Medical School in 1987, discuss the need to involve teachers who had never thought much about learning nor worried about facilitating student interactions. The change from teacher to facilitator requires a redefinition of relationships concerning:

teachers' and students' learning--no longer disseminators, trusting students, guiding through questioning, and feedback;

teachers and content--cover everything verses let them choose what they need, realize a rich network of connections among ideas facilitates understanding and remembering;

teacher and student--partner with students in learning, loosen control of content and process of learning, students learn to ask questions and provide extended explanations;

student to student--when working with problem material, students become actively engaged with one another, characterized by cooperation rather than competition;

teacher to group--attentive to the needs of...group and the health of the group...fostering a cooperative spirit;

teacher and self--self-awareness through thought-provoking questions and managing participation, reflective; and

teacher and other teachers--collaboration, vulnerability, modelling of the process of self-directed learning.

(Davis, Stephen; 1994, The Ohio State University, Dissertation: PROBLEM BASED LEARNING IN MEDICAL EDUCATION: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF CURRICULUM DESIGN AND STUDENTS' EXPERIENCE IN AN EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM)