Sunday, February 26, 2012

Learning how to teach

Blog #3
by Nishani


Friday’s meeting with our supervisor involved a discussion on the ways information is taught in medical school.  I personally prefer the older method of chalkboard/whiteboard teaching over slide presentations.  I find that I learn better through this former method because it forces the presenter to slow down how he/she describes the information.  This was also the lecture method I was more familiar with through my undergraduate study.  However, I was intrigued to hear from my supervisor that very little is actually learned during a lecture.  Coming from a predominantly math/physics background, I found that I tended to rely on lectures to learn how to solve homework problems.  This changed somewhat in medical school because I knew I had to constantly review the volumes of information presented in lecture in order for it to “stick.” 

We then discussed how teaching techniques change through clerkship.  During this particular week, I realized that I learned a lot of information simply by being tested on the spot in a patient encounter.  One strategy that our preceptor used was to give clues to the questions he asked by connecting them to seemingly unrelated topics.  He made connections that forced us to “think outside the box.”   After the patient encounter, he would bring out his collection of photos showing various physical findings associated with a particular condition. I found both of these methods to be very useful in reinforcing our knowledge.

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