This semester, I’m taking an Academically Based Community Service course with Environmental Studies professor Richard Pepino called “Urban Environments: Speaking About Lead in West Philadelphia.”
It began with a set of readings introducing us to the problem of lead in cities. These served to fulfill the often primary intention of course readings in that they helped us to understand a problem in an abstract way.
Many courses would start and end with these readings. But this one didn’t.
Instead, we began going out into the community. For example, we were given the opportunity to attend a proceeding at Philadelphia Lead Court, which addresses issues relating to lead poisoning in homes with children.
As I watched the proceedings, it became obvious that lead remediation is a very real problem in the city of Philadelphia. I knew I wanted to, at the very least, be part of a possible solution.
And, in this course, I have the chance to.
This is Problem-Solving Learning — a pedagogy the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education has been advocating for the past eight years. We are now pushing it further by supporting the creation of a centralized office to manage courses and resources.
As SCUE’s White Paper on Undergraduate Education discussed, PSL is a type of education that focuses on solving a real-world problem. It will often involve a practical component where students actually experience the problem firsthand. Students in a PSL class will try to solve the problem they experience with innovative recommendations or initiatives.
For example, over the next few weeks, my classmates and I are going to be synthesizing our experiences to write 10-page papers and make 15-minute presentations where we will present recommendations or ideas about specific aspects of the lead problem. Because of the experiences we had outside the classroom, I’m going to be writing about how to streamline, and make more efficient, the lead court system.
Especially in ABCS courses, PSL has organically and gradually become a part of the undergraduate Course Register.
To underscore this shift toward PSL at Penn, and to help foster momentum for the pedagogy, SCUE presented a document in December 2007 describing five student-faculty collaborative groups that were applying their knowledge to real-world problems.
But now, we want to move beyond the theoretical. We want to help PSL expand outside of ABCS so that it can thrive in other academic circles at Penn.
When we discussed with professors the next steps for advancing this pedagogy, we discovered common themes. First, there must be a collective group of stakeholders supporting and defining the broad goals of PSL in the classroom. In addition, there needs to be an office supporting the extensive work needed to organize the guest lectures and field trips that define PSL in its purest form.
One possible solution is the creation of a Center for Problem-Solving Learning at Penn that would support the day-to-day workings and expansion of these courses.
Like the ABCS programs offered Barbara and Edward Netter Center for Community Partnerships, this Center for Problem-Solving Learning would encourage course creation with grants. Each semester, the office would be given the charge of fielding up to 10 to 15 PSL courses.
It would also work to label these courses in the Course Register and bring together interested professors so there is a group of stakeholders defining the future of the pedagogy.
The key challenge to building this center and expanding PSL on campus is funding. While we recognize the various priorities this University faces, we hope the center could be incorporated into Penn’s development plan. We also hope that students will seek out PSL courses and ask their professors about the pedagogy.
It is pivotal that Penn educate the leaders of tomorrow in innovative and practical ways. Investing in a Center for Problem-Solving Learning would help us in that worthy goal.
Charles Gray is SCUE chairman, a College and Wharton junior and a former Daily Pennsylvanian columnist. His e-mail address is chagr@wharton.upenn.edu.
