Problem-based learning meets case-based reasoning
Proceedings of the 1996 international conference on Learning sciences, (1996)Abstract
The modern education community agrees that deep and effective learning is
best promoted by situating learning in authentic activity. Many in the education
community have put in place constructivist classroom practices that put students into
situations where they must make hypotheses, collect data, and determine which data to use
in the process of solving a problem or participating in some kind of realistic analysis or
investigation. Research in case-based reasoning (CBR), which provides a plausible model
of learning from problem solving situations, makes suggestions about education that are
consistent with these educational theories and methodologies and which can provide added
concreteness and detail. In this paper, we show how CBR's suggestions can enhance
problem-based learning (PBL), which is already a well-worked-out and successful approach
to education. The computational accounts CBR provides of reasoning activities,
especially of knowledge access, access to old experiences (cases), and use of old
experiences in reasoning, suggest guidelines about materials that should be made
available as resources, the kinds of reflection that will promote transfer, qualities of good
problems, qualities of the environment in which problems are solved (e.g., affordances for
feedback), and sequencing a curriculum. The two approaches complement each other well,
and together, we believe they provide a powerful foundation for educational practice in the
constructivist tradition, one that at once combines lessons learned from classroom
practice with sound cognitive theory.
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