Product Based Learning

After more than 15 years in Singapore, I will be returning to Australia. Helping to start an institution that was perpetrate to the philosophy and entrust of programmable education has been tremendously enriching in m either ways trying to understand the unique nature of different disciplinary noesis when crafting problems deconstructing facilitation practice in classrooms made up of diverse students designing mental faculty development activities that try to foster and model critical and reflective practice and the creation of learning spaces, both concrete and virtual, all of which assist in the achievement of learning.My immersion in the practice and empirical research of PL has labored me to wrestle almost daily with philosophic questions that are not soft resolved. I share two such questions that have motivated unvaried reflection about PL. Question 1 What is the ego in self-directed learning? Aristotle, Kant, Descartes, Habeas and Hegel all allude to the importance of the concept of self in any theory of pitying development and learning. In PL there is a steady emphasis on the self directing learning. The appeal for self-directness is very compelling, yet expectant to get a handle on.Contemporary sociological texts suggest we are perpetually constructing our sense of self. So how does a PL facilitator understand the students ever- changing sense of self so this can be acted upon, or, perhaps more fundamentally, how does the student come in a notion of self in a manner that would deal his or her learning? Furthermore if the self is embodied by the rational, the emotional, and biologic attributes of an individual, how do these combine to inform self-directness? Question 2 How do PL institutions and facilitators pertain the behavior of learners?When PL is applyed at an institutional level, it stems from the life that PL can impinge on the behaviors of students to achieve certain desired outcomes what should be valued in the pursual of c hange? The various traditions in psychology and sociology address the question of how to print behavior differently, I. E. , whether the emphasis is on altering the internal state, or the handling of external and social environments. Parker Palmer takes this divide further and asks is meaningful change from the human heart (the subjective) or from factors external from us (what is regarded as objective)?Add to that the persuasion that knowledge is socially constructed, and a yard of epistemological and ontological questions arise. In addressing these types of complex philosophic questions that underpin PL, have found myself, at times, preoccupied by the intricacies of the competing philosophical positions. This can lead, if one is not careful, to a palsy wherein we choose to either dismiss PL as an idea that is too grueling to come to terms with, or accept PL as method for precept that is simply followed.I addressed the danger of the latter in a musical composition presented in 2004 at the 5th Asia Pacific Conference in PL An perspicuous philosophy of teaching grounded in the beliefs of what is knowledge and learning, while also pickings into the account the context within which a instructor operates, can abide the basis of a conviction for ones actions, an anchor that can secure the teacher when faced with the opposition that naturally occurs in trying to enact a vision of a better education. This is especially so for those trying to implement or sustain PL in the hallowed halls of reproductive pedagogy.Without a philosophical basis of PL the educator is placed in a perplexed lieu of trying to defend the house built on sand with the scend washing in. In deciding to flee from the UN- enable fight he becomes akin to a nomadic wanderer searching the waste lands of instrumentalist drifting from one pedagogical fad to the next but world unable to establish a foundation long enough to check up on when the next wave of what is good education hits the beach that they are not swept up by it. I share these philosophical questions, as hand the baton over to the new editor of Reflections on PL Karen Gogh, with the aim of pointing out how there is a continued need to persist in the reflection of PL both empirically and philosophically. In this edition we feature highlights from the third International Symposium on Problem-eased Learning and include two research text file that were presented at the symposium. I really valued the symposium as we collectively grappled with the philosophical and practical issues of PL.