Post #2 for #blogjune – where I feel like it’s going to be a struggle…
Today I sat in on a Problem Based Learning (PBL) session where a small group of medical students had to finish off working through a patient case. PBL is a useful pedagogy that has been around for a while and does encourage students to investigate a range of issues involved in diagnosis, causes and treatment as a doctor would do. It does depend on all members of the group participating and a facilitator ensuring everyone is able to make a contribution.
It was interesting to note that when students are post-grad and already have a degree such as optometry, nursing, physiotherapy or pharmacy, the other team members often look to the ‘expert’ to answer questions. This can shortcut the hard work of investigating the (learning) issues of the case so a facilitator helps keep things on track.
I’ll be involved in the facilitating of such a group in semester two and wanted to see how the sessions run – I’m certainly going to have to brush up on my cardio-respiratory knowledge.
In the meantime we are investigating if Team Based Learning might be a useful alternative as it’s a slightly different model and can provide better learning outcomes for weaker students. One issue that will need to be taken into account is the flexibility of learning spaces and how large the cohort of students is…
Today I managed to get a walk in during lunchtime and strolled through this little forest – very fortunate to be in a workplace that has a parkland campus.
Oh, and the Word of the Day was ‘gnomist’ – nothing to do with studying little garden statues…
Tags: blogjune