The power of problem-based learning in developing critical thinking skills: preparing students for tomorrow's digital futures in today's classrooms

Abstract

This article describes problem-based learning as a powerful pedagogical approach and an aligned teaching and learning system to explicitly and directly teach critical thinking skills, in a broad range of disciplines. Problem-based learning is argued to be a powerful pedagogical approach as it explicitly and actively engages students in a learning and teaching system, characterised by reiterative and reflective cycles of learning domain-specific knowledge and doing the thinking themselves. At the same time, students are guided and coached by the problem-based learning teacher who models critical thinking skills in the acquisition of the domain-specific knowledge. This article will explore what critical thinking actually means? What are critical thinking skills? How best to teach such skills? What is the potential role of problem-based learning in teaching critical thinking skills? Finally, this article reflects on how critical thinking can be developed through problem-based learning as a pedagogical approach in an aligned learning and teaching context.