Speaker Introduction

Phyllis Blumberg received her Ph.D. in Developmental and Educational Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh.  In 1983 was a co-founder of a pre-clinical PBL program at Rush Medical College and has been an advocate of PBL ever since.  From 1988- 1995 she worked with all PBL programs within the Health Sciences at McMaster University.  Then she helped to start a graduate school of Public Health at Allegheny University of the Health Sciences, where all instruction was PBL. As Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Phyllis was responsible for all curriculum development and student evaluation. She has many years of experience evaluating students in different ways at different schools.  Phyllis has used qualitative evaluation measures such as the Triple Jump, evaluations of individual performance in PBL case discussions, written summaries students produce to report on their learning issues, and simulated presentations to lay and professional groups after finishing a case.  She also has experience with more quantitative measures such program wide progress tests that students take repeatedly and are not tied to specific courses or cases. For the last five years she has been Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.  She has given many presentations and wrote numerous articles on PBL.  Many of these concern how PBL fosters the development of self-directed learning skills, and how students and PBL programs can be evaluated.