Ágoston Kecskés
992868991
January 9, 2012
Blog Entry #5: Teaching exercise
I
spent part of the past weekend piecing together an effective teaching exercise
for my CEEP selective. Many of my friends and family members are teachers in
some capacity or another. I myself have taught high school, undergraduate, and
even medical students in various formats. Thus, I generally think of myself as relatively
knowledgeable of the challenges involved in assembling a lesson plan. I must
say: I continue to underestimate the challenges that teachers face.
Part of the challenge is uncertainty. There is
uncertainty about what the audience knows, what they would want to know, and
what they are capable of absorbing in the given 30-minute teaching format –
more in terms of interest than intellectual capacity. Furthermore, these are
all uncertainties that will be quickly exposed during the 30 minutes of
teaching time. There is also uncertainty inherent in the teaching materials,
particularly since my topic – smartphones in medical education – is both very
recent and ideally should be evidence-based. There just isn’t very much written
about smartphones, let alone anything substantial. For the purpose of
formulating a research question worth asking, this is fantastic. From the
purpose of conveying a valuable message to my audience, it is less than ideal. Then
again, the value of the message is in the eye of the beholder. It’s also true
that that if I were teaching dusty, well-established material then keeping the
seminar interesting would be the challenge.
To manage the uncertainty I am facing, I will draw on the
experience of my friends and family as well as the perspective of my peers. As
I skimmed through the medical education literature on theoretical frameworks for
clinical teaching, I came across two useful articles from a series entitled
“ABC of learning and teaching in medicine.” [1] [2]
[1] David M. Kaufman, “Applying educational
theory in practice,” British Medical
Journal, http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7382/213.full;
accessed 8 January 2012
[2] John Spencer, “Learning and teaching in
the clinical environment,” British
Medical Journal, http://www.bmj.com/content/326/7389/591.1;
accessed 8 January 2012
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