COLLABORATIVE AND SELF-DIRECTED LEARNING PROCESSES: A CASE STUDY IN MALAYSIAN CHEMISTRY PBL LESSON

Problem-based learning (PBL) provides students with the opportunity to conduct self-directed learning in collaborative groups, which are essential skills to meet challenges in the 21st century. This study aims to investigate the occurrence and types of collaborative and self-directed processes during problem analysis phase utilizing the FILA-MMS chart in Malaysia secondary school. Two out of five groups of students taught by a teacher in one PBL chemistry lesson was observed, audio-recorded and the verbatim were analyzed. The findings show that collaborative process and self-directed process occur in both groups. Collaborative processes occur by 79.1% and 78.9% in group 1 and group 2 respectively. Major collaborative processes observed in both groups are „question and answer‟, „co-construction‟ and „sharing of ideas or information‟. Self-directed processes occur by 18.3% and 12.9%. The main self-directed processes observed are „monitoring‟ and „directing‟. This study shows that there is a lack of self- directed learning skills among students, such as planning, reflection, evaluation of understanding, and managing information and resources. To enhance these skills among students, future PBL teachers are suggested to emphasize and model planning, reflection and evaluation processes in their lessons

Collaborative and self-directed learning processes : a case study in Malaysia chemistry PBL lesson

Problem-based learning (PBL) provides students with the opportunity to conduct self-directed learning in collaborative groups, which are essential skills to meet challenges in the 21st century. This study aims to investigate the occurrence and types of collaborative and self-directed processes during problem analysis phase utilizing the FILA-MMS chart in Malaysia secondary school. Two out of five groups of students taught by a teacher in one PBL chemistry lesson was observed, audio-recorded and the verbatim were analyzed. The findings show that collaborative process and self-directed process occur in both groups. Collaborative processes occur by 79.1% and 78.9% in group 1 and group 2 respectively. Major collaborative processes observed in both groups are ‘question and answer’, ‘co-construction’ and ‘sharing of ideas or information’. Self-directed processes occur by 18.3% and 12.9%. The main self-directed processes observed are ‘monitoring’ and ‘directing’. This study shows that there is a lack of selfdirected learning skills among students, such as planning, reflection, evaluation of understanding, and managing information and resources. To enhance these skills among students, future PBL teachers are suggested to emphasize and model planning, reflection and evaluation processes in their lessons

Teacher and student questions: a case study in Malaysian secondary school problem-based learning

Problem-based learning (PBL) promotes high order questioning and stimulates student thinking, thus playing an important role in preparing students to face real-world challenges. Yet, PBL is an uncommon instructional strategy in Malaysian secondary school science classrooms. Occurrence of questioning in the traditional spoon-feeding classroom is low. Thus, the PBL model adapted from Barrows has been introduced. This article investigates whether PBL is able to promote high order questioning and thinking in the Malaysian science classroom. A PBL class with 1 teacher and 17 students divided into 4 groups was observed, video-and audio-recorded, and the verbatim were analysed. Questions are categorized into high order, low order, eliciting ideas, and evaluating ideas questions. Findings show that the percentage of student questions is 67.9% while for teacher questions is 32.1%. The amount of student questions per hour is relatively high at 8.2 questions per student. Nearly half of the classroom questions are low order questions (47.9%), such as clarification, verification, concept completion, disjunctive, definition, example, quantification, and feature specification questions. High order questions consist of 16.3%, which include causal antecedent, causal consequence, goal orientation, comparison, enablement, and reflective questions. Eliciting ideas questions raised by the teacher cover 8.8% while evaluating ideas questions by students cover 27.1%. This study shows that the PBL environment promotes active learning, student thinking, and questioning in the Malaysian science classroom. However, student and teacher questions should be enhanced to be at higher order level. Several suggestions to extend low order questions into high order questions are discussed in this paper

FILA-MMS charts in chemistry PBL lesson : a case study of its implementation during problem analysis

Problem-Based Learning provides a platform for Malaysia to develop quality human capital. It is crucial to nurture students with skills and capabilities since schooling years. Chemistry is also an important subject which enables learners to understand the world around them at three levels of representation: Macroscopic, subMicroscopic and Symbolic. In this research, the FILA chart has been redesign into FILA-MMS chart. A case study is carried out on the problem analysis and learning process that utilized this chart. Findings show that there are three phases of the process: teacher explanation, group discussion and class discussion. Students’ work are also reviewed