Contributors

Oon-Seng Tan , PhD, is Associate Professor and Head of Psychological Studies at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is also Director of the Singapore Centre for Teaching Thinking and the current elected President of the Educational Research Association, Singapore. He was Director of the Temasek Centre for Problem–based Learning when he won the Enterprise Challenge Innovator Award from the Prime Minister's Office for co-pioneering a project on educational innovation. Dr. Tan is a frequent keynote speaker at international conferences on Problem–based learning (PBL) and publishes extensively on cognition and learning. He is the author of Problem–based Learning Innovation: Using Problems to Power Learning in the 21st Century, as well as the main co-author of Educational Psychology: A Practitioner—Researcher Approach (An Asian Edition).

Mary Sue Baldwin , MSN, EdS, is Director of the Teaching, Learning and Scholarship Center (formerly Center for Problem–based Learning) at Samford University. She is also Co-Director of the Problem–based Learning: Peer Review grant sponsored by Samford and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Drawing upon her experiences in nursing and her involvement as one of the PBL pioneers at Samford, she has co-authored articles, portfolios, and a monograph on the use of PBL in nursing education as well as made numerous presentations on the use and documentation of PBL.

Ruth O. Beltran , MA, OTRP, AccOT, studied occupational therapy and sociology at the University of the Philippines. She is teaching in the undergraduate and graduate programs in occupational therapy at the School of Occupation and Leisure Sciences, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Sydney. She has practiced as an occupational therapist in mental health in the Philippines and Australia and taught at the University of the Philippines before joining Sydney University. At Sydney, Ruth has conducted educational projects in the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore. Her publications and research interests are in the areas of refugee and migrant mental health, occupational therapy and mental health, and occupational therapy theory.

Ellina Chernobilsky holds a Master's degree in Teaching from the University of Memphis, Tennessee. She is pursuing a doctoral degree at the Department of Educational Psychology, Rutgers University. A language teacher for a number of years, Ellina's area of interest is language development and language learning. She is also interested in innovative teaching strategies and methods and how they can be applied in language teaching.

Maria Carolina DaCosta is a PhD student in Educational Psychology at Rutgers University. Her research interests include how people reason when dealing with complex problems and the role of critical thinking in complex decision making. She has taught educational psychology at Rutgers. Maria has a joint MBA degree from Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Brazil and the University of Texas at Austin and was director of business development for Latin America at Intellifact International (a business research and information portal based in Austin, Texas).

Victor Forrester , EdD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Education Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University. He has published extensively on cognition and learning and is a reviewer for several international journals. Dr. Forrester has been a speaker at numerous international conferences on PBL. His research interests include gender studies, change management, and curriculum development.

Barbara Grabowski , PhD, is Associate Professor of Education in the Instructional Systems Program at the Pennsylvania State University and Principal Investigator of two major research grants from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Her prior experience with a distance delivery program and as a designer of multimedia materials drives her research on learning with technology. She has written extensively, including some 40 technical reports on technology use, and has made numerous presentations and addresses worldwide. She has been recognized by the International University Continuing Education Association for the programs she has developed, and she received an outstanding book award for Individual Differences: Learning and Instruction (with Jonassen).

Matthew C. E. Gwee is Professor of Pharmacology in the Faculty of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He is also Interim Director of the Medical Education Unit and Chairman of the Problem–based Learning Committee in the faculty, as well as Associate Director of the Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning of the university. Professor Gwee also serves as a member of the University Committee on Educational Policy.

Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver , PhD, is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology at Rutgers University. She received her PhD in Cognitive Studies from Vanderbilt University and served postdoctoral fellowships at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center. Her research focuses on complex learning, scaffolding collaborative knowledge construction, and complex systems. She was awarded the Best Paper by a New Investigator from the American Educational Research Association's Division I for her research on PBL. She edited a special issue of the Journal of the Learning Sciences on learning through problem solving and co-edited Problem–based Learning: A Research Perspective on Learning Interactions.

Boon-Tiong Ho , Med, is a lecturer at the Science and Technology Education Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His introduction to PBL began with the training he received from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in 1995. Since then, he has conducted numerous PBL workshops and studies. His other research interests include teacher education, science education, curriculum development, teaching of thinking, school effectiveness and improvement, and organizational management. He is completing his doctoral study in the field of science teacher education with a focus on pedagogical content knowledge.

Younghoon Kim has participated as a research assistant in the KaAMS (Kids as Airborne Mission Scientists) research project funded by a NASA grant. His research interests include problem- and inquiry-based learning;technology tools to promote learners' critical, reflective, and metacognitive thinking; and distributed cognition in technology-enhanced learning environments. He is a PhD candidate in Instructional Systems at the Pennsylvania State University studying the cultivation of students' reflective thinking in an online learning context.

Tiffany A. Koszalka , PhD, is Associate Professor in the Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation Program at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. She has worked in the fields of instructional and educational technologies for over 20 years and has managed large-scale projects integrating leading-edge technology into case-based and PBL environments. Most recently, she has collaborated on research projects funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation that focus on the use of Internet technologies to enhance multiple teaching and learning methods, including PBL. She has written on learning environment design factors that influence reflective thinking in PBL environments and the design of PBL lesson plans.

Moira G. C. Lee , PhD, is manager of the Staff and Educational Development Division, Human Resource and Staff Development Department at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore. Her abiding interest is in adult learning and her doctoral research at the University of Nottingham focused on collaborative learning. She has published in both these areas. Dr. Lee has conducted doctoral seminars on models of adult learning in the Asian setting. Her areas of educational specialization include professional development workshops on qualitative educational research, professional staff development, teacher mentoring, and adult learning.

Valerie McCombs , Med, is an instructional design specialist in the Instructional Technology Department at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She was the Electronic Portfolio Coordinator and Research Associate for the Center for Problem–based Learning at Samford University when the portfolios were written. During her tenure at Samford, she was responsible for designing and managing the center's web site, conducting research, and assisting in the publication of the newsletter PBL Insight. Her latest publication is Assessing and Researching Problem–based Learning.

Shane Merritt , MA in Psychology, is from the Indigenous Kamilaroi people of Northern New South Wales. He lectures and develops subjects in mental health at the University of Sydney. Before joining the university in 1997, Shane had worked as a graduate drugs and alcohol counselor, in mental health, and with charity organizations in London. During that period, he worked with AIDS patients, single parents, and people with obsessive compulsive disorders. Shane is also a psychologist registered with the New South Wales Psychologists Registration Board and is a full member of the Australian Psychological Society.

George Watson , PhD, is Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Science and Unidel Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Delaware. He joined the faculty in 1987 after a postdoctoral position at AT&T Bell Laboratories and receiving a PhD in physics from Delaware. He was the principal investigator on a grant from the National Science Foundation program on institution-wide reform of undergraduate education, which led to the creation of the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education at Delaware, a faculty development enterprise for PBL and instructional technology. He is the principal investigator on projects to develop PBL curricula for physics and to reform science and mathematics education in Peru.

Peggy A. Weissinger , EdD, is Director of Instructional Design and Development in the Office for Professional Development at Indiana University—Purdue University, Indianapolis, and an adjunct faculty in the School of Education. In her on-campus research, she has looked at critical thinking foundation skills of graduate students enrolled in a PBL curriculum. She is also a co-facilitator of a faculty learning community focusing on PBL. She was state president for the National Association for Developmental Education and is a national core committee member of the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education.

William Y. Wu , PhD, a counseling and educational psychologist by training from the University of California Los Angeles, is with the Department of Education Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, teaching educational psychology. He is one of three directors of the Thinking Qualities Initiative Project, Centre for Educational Development, at the same university. He has been experimenting with the direct teaching of higher-order thinking skills, PBL, and the infusion of thinking skills into the school curriculum in Hong Kong.