Walter Cannon
Central College
Pella, Iowa

Last year Walter Cannon appeared in a PBS special on "inquiry-based learning." He's a good example of the range of activities thought of as Problem-Based Learning in some circles. Cannon teaches English and writing at Central College in Pella, Iowa. Five years ago, he was introduced to "service learning" when he reviewed a book called Writing for Change. Inspired by that experience, he began incorporating a service-learning component to his upper division, "Non-fiction Writing" classes.

Service Learning? Internship? PBL?

Cannon sends his students out in pairs to such organizations as Habitat for Humanity and others to find out what their writing needs are. The students listen to those needs and create brochures, press releases, feature stories, and similar materials for their clients. Cannon sees this as a problem-based learning experience. "They have to identify the needs, find the voice, identify the audience and so on," he says.

Although it looks a lot like an internship, these experiences are a bit different, he says, in that they focus more on projects rather than learning the job. Students do keep reflective journals, and these, together with a report from the site supervisor and Cannon's own assessment figure into the students's overall assessment in the course.

PBL in Parts and What It Offers

Cannon uses PBL in a modular way in his other classes. For example, he had students carry out a debate on Faust in his British Literature course, pondering the piece as a morality play versus notions of it as a classic tragedy. Is it about the existential questions that vexed Aristotle or is it about the consequences of doing a bad thing?

PBL is more work, Cannon admits, but he says, "PBL is a lot more energizing. It changes the dynamics of the classroom, the whole pedagogical picture. Students will be as passionate as we ask them to be. The old delivery system [straight lecture] is boring for everybody. If you change the strategy, you get a different result. When the stakes are raised, students rise to the occasion."

Contact: Walter Cannon (515-628-5107)