Problem-Based Learning: Turn Your Brains Inside-Out, Teachers

In our group's division of labor for the PBL project, I ended up writing the initial "poorly-structured question." It sounded like an easy enough job at first, but it ended up being a bit more complicated than I'd expected. It basically boils down to two steps: first you describe the overall situation, then you describe the students' role in it. The first part is pretty simple with a little bit of creativity (and if you're taking it from a real problem, that's sometimes not even necessary), but the second part is definitely the more challenging of the two. It's not always easy to come up with a way to justify students' involvement in a larger issue; either you go into a lot of detail and end up actually giving things away about the solution, or you don't give enough information and leave students confused. A humorous take on it might work in some situations (like the teacher getting his students involved in the rocket industry by putting on a funny hat and claiming he was an engineer), but for more mundane situations (our group is working on cleaning up garbage and making a "greener" Milwaukee) a more serious take is needed.