Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | A | Academic Exchange Quarterly

Problem-based learning in the study of literature.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Problem-based learning can be effective in teaching entry-level students to interpret literature by presenting those students with an authentic and in-depth case study of one author so that they can explore that author from all the angles traditionally used in interpreting literature. The following article details the results of a two-semester trial using a problem-based case study focused on Thomas Hardy in four sections of a gateway course to the English major at a medium-sized urban university.

Introduction

I have been intrigued by the challenges of problem-based learning for years and have struggled over how to provide an authentic case as a strategy for teaching literary interpretation where there are no obvious concrete problems or policy issues at stake. Because I frequently teach Writing about Literature, the gateway course to the English major at a medium-sized urban university, I determined to try providing an authentic case-study to the students in four sections of twenty students each over a two-semester period.

Specifically, I was inspired by recent literature in college pedagogy which has emphasized the need for college teaching to learn something from professional education which is now reversing the long-held strategy of first immersing students in theory and then giving them clinical experience where they are expected to draw from their previous learning. For example, medical educators are now finding success in immersing their students in the clinical situation first and requiring the students to make connections, ask their own questions, initiate their own research in responding to the real-life situations they encounter in their early clinical training. Afterwards the students undergo intensive theoretical and analytical study during which they can draw from their earlier clinical experiences. Lee Shulman advocates broadly that applying the new strategy to undergraduate majors will energize undergraduate education. Dee Fink suggests that students in subject areas such as geography or business with relevance to policy-making or civic planning be introduced to decision-making opportunities early in their undergraduate careers with the expectation that students will then use these early professional experiences as benchmarks for further study in their fields (112-114).

From the mid-1990s, problem-based learning seemed a natural match for the more scientific and policy-oriented fields (Duch). However, some work has recently been published providing insights into how problem-based learning can be applied to the field of literary studies, and that work is insightful and helpful. For example, Jeffrey Sommers details his findings as he carefully followed...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!