PBL: From Maastricht to Aalborg

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PBL From Maastricht to Aalborg

• Elie Milgrom (em_at_info.ucl.ac.be)
• Christine Jacqmot (cj_at_info.ucl.ac.be)
• U. C. Louvain (Belgium)

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Maastricht http//www.unimaas.nl

• School of Medicine created in 1974
• Now also
• Arts and Culture
• Economics and Business
• Sciences
• Health Sciences
• Law
• 100 (pure) PBL

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Maastricht (cont.)

• 10,000 students
• 30 from region around Maastricht
• Medicine
• overall success rate 85
• average duration 6.4 years (8.5 NL avg)
• max 12 hours scheduled activities/week
• max 2 hours of lectures/week

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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)
A typical week (2 hours units)
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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)

• The curriculum
• 6 years
• 7 blocks (educational units) / year
• continuously evaluated and improved
• by faculty
• with outside experts
• by students

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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)

• A block
• addresses a single theme
• is interdisciplinary
• is supported by a block book
• is concluded by assessments
• of students, by faculty
• of the block, by students

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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)

• A block book
• is written by a team of faculty members
• contains
• list of of learning objectives
• 12 to 14 problems and other assignments
• schedules
• references
• skill labs assignments
• self-assessment procedures
• no course material

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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)

• Scheduled group work (tutorial groups)
• twice a week, for 2 hours each time
• 8 students (reallocated for every block)
• 1 tutor (does very little !)
• 1 hour to report on previous problem
• 1 hour to discuss new problem
• find out what to learn in order to be able to
  solve the problem (hopefully!)
• every student gets to lead the discussion during
  the block

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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)

• Between tutorial groups, students
  independently
• attempt to achieve the learning objectives by any
  possible means
• prepare a report for the next meeting
• Not every student learns the same thing at the
  same instant in time (so what ?)

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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)

• Assessments
• after every block
• skills test every year
• 4 times a year progress test
• for all students in the School of Medicine
• level final MD examination

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Maastricht - Medicine (cont.)

• Roles of faculty members
• tutor
• member of block preparation group
• member of test preparation group
• member of test review committee
• developer of training program for specific skills
• trainer in faculty development programs
• etc.

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Aalborg http//www.auc.dk

• School of Engineering created in 1974
• 100 PBL - Project-Based Learning
• 10,000 students
• Only 2 universities with Engineering in DK
• Aalborg doubled its of students over 6 yrs
• Lyngby halved its of students over 6 yrs

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Aalborg (cont.)

• The curriculum 7 or 10 semesters
• Every semester
• one single theme
• articulated around a single project, chosen by
  each group from a list of projects
• First semester 2 projects to get started
• Groups (5 - 8) are formed for the semester
• Every group has its own meeting room !

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Aalborg (cont.)

• Semester load
• 50 project work
• 25 courses related to the project
• 25 general courses
• Semester organization
• first third 75 courses - 25 project
• second third 50 - 50
• third third 25 - 75

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Aalborg (cont.)

• The scheduled activities are organized in 4h
  modules devoted to a single subject
• Tutors are available on demand (within reason)
• Students claim to work between 40 to 80 hours per
  week and they seem to like it!

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Aalborg (cont.)

• Assessment at the end of the semester
• in group, but individual grades
• with all concerned faculty
• over the project and project-related courses
• with external witnesses, who report on quality
  of
• students
• education system
• General courses Pass/Fail only

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Common Features

• Students
• highly motivated
• take responsibility for their studies
• mature
• love what theyre doing
• know how to operate in teams
• take active part in improvement of system
• Faculty
• ...

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Common Features (cont.)

• The institution
• rewards active faculty involvement in education
• provides faculty development programs
• provides the necessary logistics

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Conclusion

• Same learning-centered view
• Same concern for realistic professional
  situations to stimulate learning
• Same notion of 100 pure system, thus very
  coherent (few concessions)
• Lots of time to fix early mistakes
• Very different implementations
• PBL comes in many flavors !