Sometimes confused with project-based learning (also abbreviated PBL). Distinct: problem-based learning emphasises the problem and the reasoning; project-based learning emphasises the deliverable.
Problem-based learning is a pedagogical approach where students learn by working through ill-structured problems — problems where the correct answer is not given and the path to it is not obvious. Originating in medical education, the approach has spread to engineering, business, and policy programmes.
The central activity is collective problem-framing. Students must figure out what kind of problem they are looking at, what evidence they need, and how they would know they had reached a defensible answer. The pedagogy emphasises the reasoning more than the deliverable, which makes it complementary to project-based and challenge-based approaches that emphasise the artefact.
Ewance challenges share family resemblance with problem-based learning — the briefs are real and ill-structured by construction, and the rubric criteria reward problem-framing as well as the deliverable. The practical difference is that Ewance also requires the deliverable to be shipped, so the student leaves the challenge with both the reasoning practice and the artefact.
The fastest way to know whether challenge-based learning fits you is to ship one.
