Problem-Based Learning for Low Carbon Society

By : Fatin Aliah Phang
School : School of Education
Audience : Anyone Interested
Language : English
Description:

Problem-Based Learning for Low Carbon Society (PBL LCS) is an educational program for secondary school students to acquire knowledge and skills in tackling LCS related problems. It started as a part of a grassroot project conducted by the Kyoto Environmental Activities Association (KEAA) which was funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in 2016. The three year project aims at capacity building for LCS in Iskandar Malaysia.

In this project, teachers are trained to use PBL in teaching LCS issues to students. PBL is a teaching and learning method that are based on Constructivism learning theory. It is a student-centred approach where learning is the active role of the students while teachers act as facilitators to guide the learning. In this project, specifically Cooperative Problem-Based Learning (CPBL) is used.

Selected teachers will go through a series of training on Active Learning, Cooperative Learning, PBL and LCS. They also design problems and lesson plans. All these take 10 day of training in a period of 3 months. After each training, the teachers are encouraged to practice what they have learnt and continue to the next training. The training is provided by PBL and LCS experts from UTM.

After the training, the teachers will conduct PBL LCS class in a team teaching manner as they will act as facilitators to a class of Form 2 students. The students will go through 3 LCS related problems in 6 month of learning. They will identify problems, define problems, identify learning issues, self study, peer teaching, discuss learning in groups, present their understanding and make reflection of their own learning. From the learning, they will be able to propose method to further understand LCS problems and propose meaningful solutions. The teaching and learning process is observed by UTM so that supervision can be given to the teachers to improve their teaching and learning.

To recognize the hard work of teachers and students involved in this project, a competition is organized at the end of the year. The main objective of the PBL LCS is for the students to understand and learn more about LCS. It is the learning that is more important than the winning. Therefore, the competition is designed to assess the students’ performance in terms of knowledge and skills acquired throughout the implementation of LCS PBL in a year. All the groups will submit their final report to UTM. Marks from the teachers and UTM will be combined to determine the best 3 groups from each school. The selected groups will enter the semi-final competition in a poster presentation format. The best 6 groups will be selected to participate the final competition where they will present their problem and solution orally.