The 3rd Asia-Pacific Joint Conference on Problem-based Learning
The application of PBL to General Education and Ethics in a
Taiwanese University
Dena Hsin-Chen Hsin
Center of Faculty Development, China Medical University (Taiwan)
PBL has been introduced in medical schools all over the world for decades. The philosophy behind the implementation of PBL is to enable every participant to develop as a self-directed and life-long learner, which is expected of all university students. Therefore, it is essential to apply PBL to the general education course in students’ early stage of university learning. According to our previous experience, PBL provided a platform to enable students to integrate acquired knowledge and to enhance learning in real-life context. Similarly, general-education intended to help students use abstract knowledge to understand concrete problem and try to bring student to understand how everything they learned relates to their lives and to the
world they will confront.
“Life and ethics”, a vital subject for informed citizen, which combined life science learning and the learning in human value system, was designed as a general education course in China medical university of Taiwan. This multidisciplinary learning intends to integrate life science and social behavior knowledge to inspire students to be concerned about ethical issue in human life. A couple of trigger problems of living cases presented to students in a small group, for example cases of animal use, GM food, organ donation and gene privacy were designed to achieve the aim to cultivate an attitude to respect life, consider risk vs. benefit, and understand better in diversity. To apply PBL in “Life and ethics” course, the content of education may span over multiples aspects of life science, social population and human behavior; while the learning experience would include self-directed learning, deliberative thinking, issues debate and group collaboration.
