Cultivating creative problem solvers: the PBL style

After decades of research, we now know that creativity is a multidimensional construct that involves variables from the domains of personality, environment, and cognition. A construct with such level of complexity, as we know from past research, cannot be effectively learned through traditional lecture-based instruction. Rather, the formation of this type of ability is a cultivation process. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an instructional method that holds promise for cultivating students’ creativity. The characteristics of PBL provide well-aligned instructional affordance for not only fostering students’ development of necessary ability, knowledge, and skills for creativity to occur, but also providing a learning environment that supports the cultivation process. In this paper, an analysis of the characteristics of creativity as well as a description of the main features of PBL will be discussed. Furthermore, the details of the alignment between PBL’s affordance and the characteristics of creativity will also be provided.