sed learning can include the others. Ex: Small particles of plastic are gathering in the ocean currents, creating large garbage patches; design a novel solution to clean up the plastic. Students might engage in inquiry-based experiments to determine how to remove microplastic from saltwater. A project-based component might be to develop a presentation on the garbage patches and the severity of the situation. Both of these activities involve procedural learning: skills that are attained through following and practicing a procedure. The final problem-based solution requires what I refer to as "novelity" - the ability to respond appropriately and successfully in novel situations, a key indicator of truly understanding content.
Response From Derek Cabrera
Derek Cabrera holds a PhD from Cornell University, is an author of six books and an internationally recognized expert in cognition, systems, and learning, and taught at Cornell University. Derek is currently co-Founder and senior research scientist at Cabrera Research Lab in Ithaca, New York. He is the co-author of Thinking at Every Desk: Four Simple Skills to Transform Your Classroom (W. W. Norton; 2012). Visit him at cabreraresearch.org:
The differences among project-based, problem-based, and inquiry learning are found in their origin point, and the subsequent context(s) in which one method is chosen over another. For example, project-based learning focuses on activating learning through experience, finalizing a product that demonstrates what was learned. Problem-based learning originated in medical schools as a means of developing effective collaboration and isolating the root of a real-world problem to come up with a solution. Inquiry-based learning developed in contrast to student memorization of facts in traditional schools: Teachers act as facilitators by posing a question for exploration rather than as a means to get information to be recalled.
Despite their different historical origins they are all early attempts to solve the same root problem in human learning, a problem that is often lost in educational processes: the need for students to think. We often make the mistake that knowledge and information are synonymous, (for example, with grading and high-stakes tests that often assess a student's ability to memorize information), rather than their deep understanding or knowledge. The reason thinking is so critically important is that thinking is what causes information to become knowledge. This idea is the basis for what amounts to the F=ma of learning: Knowledge is equal to the [complex] product of Information and Thinking, or K=IT. Each of these early learning theories (project-based, problem-based, and inquiry learning) are attempts to highlight the importance of constructing or deconstructing ideas through thinking and building knowledge, which is why they are all philosophically constructivist and therefore highly related.
The second dilemma these early learning theories attempted to solve was students' difficulty with ungrounded abstractions (concepts) or symbols. To remedy this difficulty, our bodies are replete with sensory perception (sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, and experience in general) that allows us to ground our thinking. So, again, all of these theories are early attempts to create ways of grounding knowledge.
My research lab has made progress in developing contemporary theories, based upon these early ones, of better ways to both build and ground knowledge, as well as many other learning techniques such as prior knowledge, metaphor and storytelling, case- and service-based, experiential, NLR, tactile manipulatives, labs, artifacts, field trips, gamification, initiative games, expeditionary learning, and even gap years. We have found that they all share a single similar purpose that can go by a lot of names (e.g., activation, reification, etc.): All have to do with grounding knowledge. We now know that these two concepts--building and grounding--are the essential ingredients of human knowing.
Response From Christopher Panna
Christopher Panna i