Stimulating Students' Interest in Business Subjects Through Problem-Based Learning

Project Title

Stimulating Students' Interest in Business Subjects Through Problem-Based Learning

Project Leader

Prof Mike So

School / Dept

SBM / ISMT

Project Duration

Nov 2005 - Aug 2006

Project Description

Many students learn business subjects superficially. They only memorize what they have learnt and rarely think how their knowledge can be applied. Moreover, when they touch on new, fast-growing areas that are not clearly defined in books/articles, they seldom do research on the new areas and develop their knowledge base.

Problem-based learning (PBL) can help solve the above problems. It is a teaching mode that requires thinking, learning, sharing and applying to account through selected hot and related topics. This allows students to learn interactively and deeply and in turn stimulating their interest in studying business subjects.

Project Outcome

There are three Problems –Based learning (PBL) activities held in this project. According to our questionnaire surveys and focus group interview, most students feel that PBLactivities can improve their independent thinking. They feel that they have deeper understandingof the subject from the activities. In addition, students think that the activities are good in thesense that they can form groups and learn from each other. They learnt communication skills andcompromising with group mates. For activity one - Group Discussion, besides learning from the interaction between group mates,students think that the brainstorming experience from the discussion is good. They can also learnother students’ way of thinking as students from different academic backgrounds are assigned toa group. For activity two - Topic Presentation, students think that the topic presentation is useful. During the activity topic presentation, they are comfortable with group works and the communication among group mates is good. However, some students think that some topics are too hard for this course. Sometimes they found that the topics are too broad that they have not enough time for searching information or doing in-depth analysis on the topic. For activity three – Business Project, they found that participating in company projects isa goodlearning experience. Besides learning how to apply what they have learnt from lectures, they gotmore familiar with the risk management industry and business operations. They also learn how totest the assumptions of a method or amodel. They think they can learn more from the companyprojects than the group discussion or topic presentation because the company projects involvemore difficult tasks. However, they think that the time allowed may be too short. Some studentsalso worried about having meeting with the clients. In short, they agreed that cooperation andenthusiasm are important in participating in the company projects. Most of them give a highrating to the course as practical experience, satisfaction and success can all be achieved.

Status

Completed

Project Documents
(Only accessible by HKUST users)

• Project Plan
• Progress Report: First | Second |
• Final Report

Adaptation

Full Project