I write in my book, English Language Learners: Teaching Strategies That Work, about how I used problem-based learning in the classroom. It’s very engaging, and very effective on a number of levels.
Apparently, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agrees.
You can now read the list of questions the CIA recommends to use in order to define problems and develop a solution to them.
I think they’re pretty good, and being able to attribute them to the CIA will only make them more attractive to students. I can see giving students the lists and having them pick the ones that they’re most interested in answering.
I’ll eventually make a separate “The Best…” list for Problem-Based Learning but, for now, I’ll add this resource to The Best Sites For Cooperative Learning Ideas.
Wonderful that you got to link to the CIA, and an excellent article. And, while I was reading this article, I continued on to the comments and read another article about 15 axioms for analysts which appeared in a 1997 CIA journal. THEN, I went back to the Table of Contents of that now de-classified journal, just out of curiosity, and found a lengthy article predicting the collapse of intelligence in…..2001. Aw, gee. Here’s the link for that:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/97unclass/failure.html
Thanks Larry for a great post and an inspiring introduction! Hope to try problem-based learning with my students next year.
The list of questions “the smart guys” use are also very interesting. I wonder if I can use it when discussing the news with my students?
Interesting, what do these people do with the news articles?