Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

From kindergarten to law school our educational systems’ goal is to prepare students to be creative, contributing members of an increasingly collaborative workforce. Traditional educational models focus on foundational theory and historical knowledge; students are considered receptacles of information rather than creators of knowledge. Within this model, students rarely have opportunities to apply their newly gained knowledge in real world settings. In recent years, this traditional model of education has been revaluated and the system is slowly changing. An increasing number of schools and educators are changing their pedagogical approach to meet the needs of a twenty-first century workforce in which collaboration and problem solving are valued over regurgitation of memorized information. Through an examination of how elementary, university, and professional schools communicate about problem-based learning (PBL) or team-based learning models (TBL), this paper examines communication around best practices, educator resistance, and incentives to implement PBL/TBL at multiple levels of education.