Purpose: This study aims to comprehend vocational preservice teachers' recalled experiences with the Cooperative Problem-based Learning (CPBL) pedagogical approach in an entrepreneurship course and to reveal how these experiences will impact their future teaching practice. The course under study intends to improve preservice teachers'…

Strong information literacy, collaboration, and argumentation skill are essential to success in problem-based learning (PBL). Computer-based scaffolding can help students enhance these skills during PBL. In this study, we investigated predictors of the quality of arguments high school environmental science students wrote in support of their…

Computer-based scaffolding (CBS) has been regarded as an effective way to help individual students complete and gain skill at completing complex tasks beyond their current ability level. Previous meta-analyses also have demonstrated that CBS for collaborative learning leads to positive cognitive outcomes in problem-centered instruction for STEM…

Taiwan's university-level vocational education is faced with a growing need to strengthen students' soft skills as a means to increase job market eligibility. Students in Taiwan are usually not equipped with group learning skills in junior and senior high school education. These learning skills, however, are an essential component of a successful…

Collaborative learning designs, such as problem-based learning (PBL), have the potential to help students build valuable team-based professional skills needed for life after schooling within higher-educational settings (Desimone, 2009; Savery, 2006); however, motivating students to work together to successfully achieve outcomes often proves…

Group projects center learning as a collaborative process, but they often produce mixed results in terms of student commitment and final products. The authors outline their experience with a course designed to engage undergraduate biomedical engineering students in a semester-long group experience and share data from their students' analyses of…

Despite the importance of writing skills to academic success, many undergraduates face a lot of challenges with writing in English. Studies have shown that engaging and supporting students in a writing process help to improve the students' writing performance. Therefore, this study used a Problem-based learning approach (PBL) in order to give…

To support our understanding of how we might support the use of modeling in PBL activities for classroom use, this study explores how to scaffold collaborative scientific modeling activities. It draws on prior work with scientific modeling centered on the use of the Component-Mechanism-Phenomenon (CMP) conceptual framework (Hmelo-Silver et al.,…

Collaborative inquiry learning affords educators a context within which to support understanding of scientific practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts. One approach to supporting collaborative science inquiry is through problem-based learning (PBL). However, there are two key challenges in scaffolding collaborative inquiry…

This paper explores how Problem-oriented Project Learning (PPL) can be organized in a context that meets the pedagogical needs of first year students. Under the assumption that, while PPL provides a fruitful context for learning, it is also challenging for early stage learners, the article formulates the theoretical considerations underlying a…

Establishing optimal challenge enhances intrinsic motivation, interest, and the probability of success in the learning activity. In K-12 problem-based learning (PBL), students may struggle to address associated tasks that are beyond their current ability levels. This paper suggested learner-centered scaffolding systems (LSS) to improve K-12…

In this study, we investigated how high school credit recovery students worked in small groups and used computer-based scaffolds to conduct scientific inquiry in a problem-based learning unit centered on water quality. We examined how students searched for and evaluated information from different sources, and used evidence to support their claims.…

Typically the material and energy balance (MEB) course is taught at a freshman or sophomore level. Success in this early course is generally believed to be a metric for future success within the chemical engineering curriculum. However, the complexities and dynamics of the course stem from not only the difficulty of the subject matter, but also…

In this study, the role-playing situation and the system requirement list are adopted into project-based learning classes to develop web applications. In the classes, the third-year undergraduate project managers communicate with the client of the project rolled by teachers on the Web bulletin board. These are expected to act as scaffolds to…

This article describes the use of "problem forums" in undergraduate professional writing courses as a technique for facilitating and sustaining learning from increasingly complex, messy, and wicked problems that are characteristic of 21st-century work. Problem forums are designed to scaffold project team discussions of rhetorical,…