2.1 When would you use PBL?
Look at these two examples of problems that coaches might typically confront:
- Your athlete suffers an injury three months before a major competition that limits their ability to train. How do you adjust and adapt the training programme and maintain the athlete’s psychological welfare?
- One of the participants that attends your regular coaching session suddenly becomes disruptive, uncooperative and openly critical of your coaching. What do you do?
These might be appropriate types of problems for coaches to find solutions for, but only if they are relevant to the context of the coaches you are supporting. They also suggest that your coaches need to have reasonable levels of prior experience and knowledge. They need to have time to explore the options and have the skills to collaborate in groups to address the problem. They need to be motivated to explore an issue and ideally you need to maintain some contact with them (in person or online) while they are problem solving.
The next approach you discover more about is called flipped learning. It has a similarity to PBL in allowing people to explore topics on their own terms and with teachers again acting as facilitators.