A Case Study about the Education of Academic Writing Utilizing the PBL - A Motivating Strategies about the Writing Examined through “Self-Reflective Journal”

Shin, Hee Sun

Korean Journal of General Education 2014;8(1):11-52.
Published online February 28, 2014.

Hee Sun Shin

PBL을 활용한 대학글쓰기 교육 사례연구

신희선

Abstract

In the writing class handled by university’s liberal education, it’s hard to expect a short-term educational effect on the enhancement of students’ writing capabilities. Eventually important thing is to let learners themselves recognize the importance of writing and have their own internal power to make efforts consistently. As a teaching and learning method, based on the constructive educational philosophy, the “PBL (Problem-Based Learning) help students learn necessary knowledge by self-driven learning and interactions with peers, when they face problematic situations. In terms that students’ learning activities are executed by their aggressively assigning and interpreting the meanings of the learning process, the PBL can be an effective method, when I consider the ultimate purpose of writing education. It means that writing education has to be designed to have a course of exercise and learning to cultivate students’ practical writing capabilities, rather than teachers’ one-sided theoretical lectures. In terms that the PBL let students themselves develop the problem-solving capabilities by internalizing learning experiences, it can be considered in the writing education. In academic writing education, especially by analyzing self-reflective journals that are used one of acting materials in the PBL class, this research paper notes that students recognized the importance of writing and mentioned the necessity of voluntary writing exercises, through their objective observations on the leaning process. Students by themselves emphasize the necessity of subsequent learning by writing the self-reflective journal; in there, students could have opportunities of introspecting the contents and the learning processes of the writing class, and they could have a chance of introspecting about how to apply class lessons to their life and what to do for cultivating their writing capabilities. As “Keller” suggested through “ARCS Model”, the fact that learning motive, which is an important factor for determining the success of study, can be strengthened by the PBL-utilized class writing is inductively reasoned by self-reflective journals. This research verifies that proper utilization of following four strategies is meaningful in order to motivate students in the writing class. First, as an attraction of attention strategy, is to stimulate students’ thinking for the writing by utilizing various audiovisual medium. Second, as a relevance strategy, is to prepare the cooperative learning place where students can exchange their thinking through mutual learning. Third, as a confidence strategy, a process-driven writing education is important to let students themselves experience changes. Fourth, as a satisfaction strategy, teachers, by positive feedbacks, have to offer meaningful reinforcement to students in order to adapt them to the subsequent learning. In conclusion, this case study is meaningful in terms that the PBL utilized writing instruction method can bring the educational effects of cultivating students’ writing capabilities, by drawing their participation and motivation.

Key Words: Academic Writing, Problem-Based Learning, Motivation, Reflective Journal, Teaching Strategies, Liberal Education