The Role of the Course Facilitator
Rather than having a teacher provide facts and then testing the students’ ability to recall these facts via memorization, the Problem Based Learning (PBL) format attempts to get students to apply knowledge to new situations. With the assistance of a course facilitator, students are presented with contextualized, ill-structured problems (virtual patient cases) and are asked to investigate and discover meaningful solutions (develop a working differential diagnosis and treatment plan). Working within the PBL format helps to develop critical thinking and creative skill, improves problem-solving skill, increases motivation, and helps students learn to transfer knowledge to new situations.
The role of the Course Facilitator (CF) is vital in the successful implementation of the PBL curriculum. The CF meets with the PBL students on a twice-weekly basis and is tasked with reviewing the students’ progress in the assigned case; answer questions concerning the assigned objectives for the current case; instructing new aspects of history taking and physical exam pertinent to the current case; and implementing strategies that will assist the students in developing life-long learning skills