What is PBL then??

--> Personal reflection of the whole chapter
When I first read this chapter for my note taking, I didn't understand because it looked complicated. However, after I did the note taking and read one more time from my note taking, I could understand the flow of the content. It's simple. Mr. Moursund just reviews 4 things about PBL in this chapter: the definition, student's point of view, teacher's point of view, and the difference between didactic learning. That's it.. =) He not only tries to list, but also explains more details, that's why it seems complicated in the first place.

Honestly, I really like when the author explains the point of view from the side of the student and the teacher. I think.. it can become 2 important points in creating PBL: the goal of PBL so that the PBL could hit the target (creator understands to always design a PBL according to student's expectation) also as comparison so that PBL is NOT created ONLY for the sake of the student, but also for the teacher (creator understands to also design according to teacher's purpose and expectation).

--> What I got from the chapter
This part is linked to http://docs.google.com/View?id=ddr83njm_115gmmsq8c3

--> Activities
- I've answered the question no.1 (my PBL experience) in my ejournal for ch. 1, so I will answer question no. 2:
I can say that the teaching method I got since I was in the elementary until high school was didactic learning. I remember that my teacher asked me to remember the periodic table for chemical subject, memorized the history of my country, also the cities and their features for geographic subject. Well, in physic and mathematic I didn;t have to memorize anything except the formulas. And for the social studies, I just learned from textbook. Every single day my teachers will stand in the front of the classroom, taught us their skills, gave us homework, tested us several times in 1 semester, and graded our scores.
Well.. this kind of method does have strengths, and I think the best one is forcing my brain to memorize things (at least my brain worked and get exercised.. =D), though at the end, I forgot almost every knowledge I memorized. And perhaps, the other benefit of didactic learning is its easiness. I believe it won't be as hard as PBL, because students don't have to think more than memorizing. Of course, the PBL will be harder, but like I've mentioned aboive, it is worthed to do because students learn and think more, and the knowledge will retain longer in their brain.
If I ever get a chance to teach, I will do both approches, but I will try to do the PBL more than the traditional one. I will use the didactic for teaching formulas, but I will use PBL to teach other things. However, in teaching with didactic style, I will have to use mindtools so that students can understand all the relationships between components, also can remember them longer. I believe this is the way to avoid the weaknesses of didactic approach.