Reflections on QED 528 Problem Based Learning

The key take-away for this Problem-based learning experience for me is that it helped me make sense of many of these educational psychology concepts. Often times, when I first read these theories, I found them to be very logical, almost to the point of being common sense. For example, peers are greatly influential on the behaviour of learners and mixing around with peers who value learning  will have a positive effect on learning and vice versa. This seems to be common sense logic that we encounter in our daily lives. However, these are not things that we consciously think about daily. For example, normally we are not too bothered about how the gender or race of our peers affect our learning. It was interesting to read about the research done on the effects of each of these factors on a learner. From this, it struck me that even in such seemingly simple logic, there was a great deal to be learnt. If I had not gone through this Problem-based learning experience, I would have taken most of these things at face value instead of wondering about the confounding variables involved. This taught me that in every problem, there is a myriad of perspectives to look at, and I must consider each one in order to obtain a clearer idea. Through this experience, I made use of self-directed learning in order to research on the topics, as well as prior knowledge based on everyday encounters. Furthermore, since I can easily relate to these everyday encounters, it provided a real world context element. After all the research, I met up with the group to discuss our findings which incorporated elements of collaborative learning.

Since my part for this Problem-based learning experience was to deal with peer effects on the behaviour of the learner, I have done most of my research on this area. One of the most remarkable things I discovered was that the practice of tracking, which means to stream students into different classes based on their abilities, which is widely implemented in schools in Singapore, completely goes against results from research. By understanding more of these educational psychology theories, it will help me as a beginning teacher to understand some of the learning impediments plaguing my students. I can then resolve these issues using the solutions I have learnt.

In conclusion, I believe that students learn best from their peers because for adolescence, the importance of their peers cannot be underestimated. Many students view their peers as being the same as them, which causes them to be highly effective models. Modelling is a very potent tool to influence learning.