The integration of problem-based learning and problem-solving tools to support distributed education environments

Discussions of pedagogy and instructional design often entail their impact upon the cognitive systems of learners, knowledge transfer, and efforts to organize, facilitate and evaluate learning activities (Bloom, 1956; Mayer, 1983; Gagné, 1985; Gagné, 1988; Bransford and Vye, 1989; Gagné and Merrill, 1990; Gagné, Briggs, and Wager, 1992; Mayer, 1996; Greeno, Collins, and Resnick, 1996; Bransford and Schwartz, 1999). Learning systems have, over the past twenty years, undergone a demonstrable shift in focus from those based in instructivist theory and approaches (logical positivism and identifiable/fixed truth) to constructivist concepts (knowledge as a social construction) and practices, particularly as they take shape in the activities comprising problem-based learning (PBL) (Barrows, 1980, 1992, 1994). A technological one has accompanied this pedagogical shift. The Internet has made possible a transformation and increase in the methods of implementing the best practices and reaching greater numbers of potential learners through systems of distributed education.