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All educational enterprises seek to produce changes in knowledge, skills and attitudes. The production of autonomous, self-reliant, flexible, critical students can be best achieved by making them active partners in their own learning. Problem-based learning is an exciting means to that end. In fact, the teacher as an information dispenser is but a fairly recent innovation. In the arguments contrasting traditional versus problem-based learning, it is often forgotten that it is problem-based learning that is truly traditional. Great teachers in all cultures and traditions (Socrates, Gautama, Pestalozzi, Freinet, Purkyne) have realised that they can best help their students by providing them with the skills required to be autonomous. The arrival of the Internet with its capacity to provide the student with more information than they can handle has freed the teacher to return to his or her traditional role as a guide, mentor and tutor. Problem-based learning has the enormous potential to stimulate students to participate actively in their own learning and thus become life-long learners. But, for the process to work optimally, teachers must be willing to shift the locus of control and students must be willing to accept that responsibility. Flexibility is the key to success in charting a course for a PBL curriculum. To travel on the many paths to PBL requires the attitudes of hitchhikers not businesspeople. Road blocks and delays are not hindrances. Both the Journey and the Inn are rewarding.
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