SALTISE | From Whiteboards to Dashboards: Representations to Support Problem-based Learning

In problem-based learning, students work in small groups to engage with a meaningful problem or task. Problem-based learning is a form of collaborative learning in which students are actively engaged in their own learning and where the teacher’s role is to facilitate the learning process. Early in her career, Cindy Hmelo-Silver was impressed at the power of structured whiteboards and other representations to mediate their learning. This early work was with medical students who had a single instructor for groups of 4-6 students. To be able to implement PBL models more broadly, technology support holds great promise. Cindy Hmelo-Silver have spent much of her career trying to develop representations that support the kinds of interactions that inspired her. In this presentation, she will discuss how problem-based learning has been integrated into different contexts, how this has been supported with different technological tools, and what the lessons learned along the way.

Presenter: Cindy Hmelo-Silver, Distinguished Professor, School of Education, Indiana University