About the UCI PBL Faculty Institute

     The University of California, Irvine is a mid-size, Research 1 institution with a heterogeneous undergraduate student population, located in Orange Co., California. The major of students commute to the campus from local areas. Many of the students also work while attending school.
     UCI is a relatively new University within the UC System. It is only 34 years old, but has managed to attract a distinguished faculty. Its students must meet the minimum standards for admission to the UC System. This year, the incoming class has the highest combined SAT scores in the University's history.
     As a new campus, UCI has pretty consistently been in a growth phase. Typically, the size of the incoming freshman class has risen significantly each year. As a result, many introductory courses are quite large, sometimes with as many as 450 in a class. Graduate teaching assistants typically help faculty to manage their classes, usually by conducting smaller discussion sessions outside of class, by conducting labs, grading papers, and in some cases, even actually teaching the courses.
     Within the next 10 years, however, the entire California higher education system is expecting enrollments to increase dramatically, with the Irvine, Riverside, and San Diego campuses expected to absorb the majority of the new students. Capital improvements take time, therefore it is quite likely that classroom overcrowding will be an even bigger issues, especially in the introductory breadth courses. Recruitment of new faculty is also time-consuming, and Irvine in particular lags behind already in graduate student recruitment. Managing the masses of students will therefore become an even bigger issue.
     Even without growth, however, many faculty, students, and employers have been disappointed with student learning outcomes. Students often seem to simply memorize the ever-increasing body of knowledge in each field, repeat it on usually a Scantron, multiple choice type test, and then promptly forget it. Frequently it seems as though students never even completed pre-requisite courses-more and more, instructors find themselves having to review basic information. This phenomenon is partly the result of inconsistent curricula in the nation's high schools, variations in curricula within the University, disagreements about what constitutes "basic knowledge," and a large number of non-native speakers of English. In addition, most students seem to have poor reading, writing, and research skills.
     Organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Hewlett Foundation, to name a few, have been very concerned with the quality of the nation's college graduates. Students seem not only unable or unwilling to recall basic information, but they also don't seem to be able to think critically about information, or to problem solve. As a result, these organizations and others have been promoting the use of a teaching methodology called Problem-Based Learning. This methodology has been increasingly adopted by medical and other professional schools; many believe that it has potential for teaching introductory subjects, as well.
     The Division of Undergraduate Education at UCI in Spring 1999 receive a grant from the Hewlett Foundation to introduce faculty to PBL and to promote its use in introductory breadth courses. The grant proposal calls for 10 faculty and their TAs to participate in a quarter-long Faculty Problem-Based Learning Institute in order to learn what the methodology is and how to apply it. Currently, eleven faculty are slated to participate in the Winter 2000 quarter. They come from a variety of disciplines:
 
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (2)
Criminology, Law, & Society (1)
History (2)
Urban & Regional Planning (1)
Psychology & Social Behavior (2)
Environmental Analysis & Design (1)
Social Science (1)
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (1)
 
     The gender mix is five women and six men. Their ranks comprise Lecturers with Security of Employment, as well as full Professors. No one in any discipline has chosen to revise the same course. Presumably, none of the participants has used PBL before.
     The Director of the Instructional Resources Center, a pedagogical specialist, and a graduate student assistant who is working on a doctorate at UCLA with a specialization in PBL are responsible for conducting the Institute.