How is PBL different from traditional teaching?

PBL is different from traditional teaching in that it requires the student to take a more active role.

The tutor presents the context (background, or scenario) of the problem, and may show the students how to use certain tools (such as a calculator or other equipment) to help solve it, but the students must actively solve the problem themselves.

Where traditional teaching generally allows the student to remain passive and just listen, the inquiry-based PBL approach is based on the idea that the students must actively construct the answer themselves.

Easy-reading resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem-based_learning

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry-based_learning