A problem-based learning curriculum is only as good as the people who run the tutorials. You can write elegant cases and map every competency, but if the tutor reverts to lecturing, the whole method collapses into a seminar with extra steps. In my experience, the curriculum is rarely the reason a PBL programme underperforms — facilitation almost always is. Here are the failures I see most often, and how to fix them.
A distinguished clinician has spent a career being the person with the answer, and the PBL tutor's job is the opposite: to withhold the answer and let students reach it. Faced with a struggling group, the instinct to rescue is overwhelming, and a well-meant mini-lecture ends the productive struggle that drives learning.
The fix: train tutors to replace the urge with a question — "What would you need to know to decide?", "Does everyone agree?", "How could you test that?" The goal is a facilitator comfortable with silence and productive uncertainty.
When facilitators have never seen excellent facilitation, they invent their own version, and tutorial quality becomes a lottery. Students notice immediately and lose faith in the method.
The fix: build a shared model through observation and practice, not slides. Run training tutorials where faculty take turns facilitating and being observed, then debrief on facilitation behaviours. A simple observation rubric turns "good facilitation" into something teachable and consistent.
A single pre-launch workshop is necessary but nowhere near sufficient. Facilitation skill develops over semesters of practice with feedback. Programmes that stop there watch quality drift as early enthusiasm fades.
The fix: make faculty development continuous and cheap — peer observation, short calibration meetings after each case block, and mentoring pairings of experienced and new facilitators.
PBL depends on group function, yet many tutors are never taught to manage it. A dominant student, a disengaged corner, or a group quietly doing the minimum will all defeat the method, and a content-focused tutor won't notice.
The fix: teach facilitators to attend to process as much as content — distribute participation, name unhelpful patterns gently, and assess individual contribution so engagement is not optional.
Fixing facilitation is not expensive; it is mostly deliberate practice and honest feedback. But it takes sustained institutional commitment — protected time for tutors, leadership that values teaching quality, and a willingness to keep investing after launch. Institutions that make that commitment get PBL as it was meant to work; those that don't get lectures in disguise.
Faculty development should be tailored to each institution's existing teaching culture and resources.
I train medical faculty in problem-based learning facilitation, with hands-on practice and ongoing calibration.
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