Initiating Problem-based Learning at Harvard Medical School

In 1984, after two years of extensive discussion and planning, Dean Daniel C Tosteson presented the curriculum committee with his final plans for the radical reform of medical education at Harvard. The committee agreed that an experimental, fully redesigned curriculum called the New Pathway would start about one year later for a volunteer group of students and faculty. The New Pathway curriculum (see Armstrong’s chapter in Part III) featured problem-based learning in tutorial groups as its central educational approach.