3.4.6: Desiging authentic problem-based learning opportunities

In researching for the fourth E-Primer, I read an article by Herrington, Oliver & Reeves (2003) called "Patterns of engagement in authentic online learning environments".In it, ten principles for generating authentic learning environments are listed:

• Authentic activities have real world relevance:
  Activities
  match as nearly as possible the real world tasks of professionals in
  practice rather than decontextualised or classroom based tasks.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities are ill-defined, requiring students to define the tasks and sub-tasks needed to complete the activity:
  Problems
  inherent in the activities are ill-defined and open to multiple
  interpretations rather than easily solved by the application of
  existing algorithms. Learners must identify their own unique tasks and
  sub-tasks in order to complete the major task.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities comprise complex tasks to be investigated by students over a sustained period of time:
  Activities
  are completed in days, weeks and months rather than minutes or hours.
  They require significant investment of time and intellectual resources.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities provide the opportunity for
  students to examine the task from different perspectives, using a
  variety of resources:
  The task affords learners the opportunity
  to examine the problem from a variety of theoretical and practical
  perspectives, rather than allowing a single perspective that learners
  must imitate to be successful. The use of a variety of resources rather
  than a limited number of preselected references requires students to
  detect relevant from irrelevant information.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities provide the opportunity to collaborate:
  Collaboration
  is integral to the task, both within the course and the real world,
  rather than achievable by an individual learner.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities provide the opportunity to reflect:
  Activities need to enable learners to make choices and reflect on their learning both individually and socially.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities can be integrated and applied across different subject areas and lead beyond domain specific outcomes:
  Activities
  encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and enable students to play
  diverse roles thus building robust expertise rather than knowledge
  limited to a single well-defined field or domain.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities are seamlessly integrated with assessment:
  Assessment
  of activities is seamlessly integrated with the major task in a manner
  that reflects real world assessment, rather than separate artificial
  assessment removed from the nature of the task.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities create polished products valuable in their own right rather than as preparation for something else:
  Activities culminate in the creation of a whole product rather than an exercise or sub-step in preparation for something else.
  

  
  

• Authentic activities allow competing solutions and diversity of outcome:
  Activities
  allow a range and diversity of outcomes open to multiple solutions of
  an original nature, rather than a single correct response obtained by
  the application of rules and procedures.

  
  

Clearly these are worthy criteria for developing activities, defined in E-Primer 3 as "working with knowledge in an applied context" (p.21). Recently on the Henderson Laidlaw campus we had a visit by Dr Terry Stewart of Massey University. Terry won the 2008 DEANZ award for his work on problem-based learning and the SBL Interactive tool (Scenario-Based Learning). It is easy to see the value of Herrngton et al's criteria as a framework for using SBLi!