Loreta Ulmer
Psychology
Delaware Technical & Community College

After attending what she enthusiastically recalls as an "inspiring workshop" on Problem-Based Learning run by Barbara Duch at the University of Delaware, Loreta Ulmer took the summer and completely restructured her introductory psychology and human development courses.

Work Required

"Initially it is a lot of work," says Ulmer, but once you get it cracking, the work is all between the kids." At the same time, getting the students to have a different attitude toward instruction presents problems as well. "Again, initially they fee it's a waste of time, but if the problems are good, are 'real' problems, then they really buy into it," she says.

This mode of instruction has several advantages in Ulmer's view. The biggest may be that it give students immediate feedback. "It keeps a constant flow going between faculty and student and you can't put a price on that."

Role Adjustment

Like many other faculty, Ulmer had trouble at first with the new posture, the new role, faculty must adopt to do Problem-Based Learning successfully. "Being a tutor: what was the right way? the wrong way? I had trouble with that at first," she says, "but the more I've done it, the more I've come to trust students to figure it [the problems] out." "Giving up control is hard," she admits, "but if you let the learning happen, it will."

The Coverage Issue

The old boogie man "coverage" vexed Ulmer at the beginning as well, but she's come to terms with him too. "I have had to give up some content I thought was crucial," she admits, "but I found out, really, that it wasn't crucial. The students 'got' the concepts even if they didn't have the names of the theorists and so on. And that was better, really, that they had the concepts. When I had the same students in the second half of the course, I found that they were just as prepared as students who'd been exposed to the coverage."

"This approach is very motivating to students," she says. "And it stimulates me as well," she adds. "When I was doing straight lecturing, it wasn't that way."

They'll Say I'm Loafing

Curiously, Ulmer notes that when it comes to sharing those laboriously developed problems and problem sets, it turns out to be easier to do that between campuses, between faculty at other institutions, than with colleagues on her own campus. It's a social adjustment thing, she supposes. Maybe it will change.

Contact:
Loreta H. Ulmer
Delaware Technical & Community College
400 Stanton-Christiana Road
Newark, DE. 19713
Telephone: (302) 292-3817
E-mail: lulmer@hopi.dtcc.edu