Benefiting from electronically blurred boundaries between students and academics in problem based learning

This work highlights the difficulties faced by students and academics in constructivist approaches to problem based learning. Here the learners are required to work in groups, which may occasionally have `free-riders' or `passenger' students. Spotting these `free-riders' tends to be difficult, making fair assessment impossible. Using effective communication tutors can engage students better and avoid `free-rider' behaviour. As shown here, this is best achieved through cognitive congruence. However, doing this in person is a resource intensive task. Instead e-logs were used as it helped identify `passenger' students and provided individual contributions. Most students surveyed agreed that the e-logs afforded individual guidance. Also, as e-logs were weighted more than the group assignments, it motivated students to contribute to own and eventually group work. The author draws inspiration from the ancient Indian `Gurukul' system of education. Also presented here, are the similarities and dissimilarities of the `Gurukul' system with the constructivist approaches of today. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected and analysed for this study (N =40). We show how electronic tools blurred the boundaries, creating an e-Gurukul system to benefit students and academics alike. Finally, the e-Gurukul approach is evaluated for individual engagement, group participation and knowledge creation.