Hannu Soini | Search PubMed

PubMed2003

Experiences of using an interactive audience response system in lectures.

BACKGROUND: Lectures are good for presenting information and providing explanations, but because they lack active participation they have been neglected. METHODS: Students' experiences were evaluated after exposing them to the use of voting during lectures in their paediatrics course. Questions were delivered to the students taking paediatrics course. Thirty-six students out of the total of 40 (90%) attended the opening lecture, at which the first survey concerning previous experiences of lectures was performed. Thirty-nine students (98%) answered the second series of questions at the end of the paediatrics course. RESULTS: Most of the students felt that voting improved their activity during lectures, enhanced their learning, and that it was easier to make questions during lectures than earlier. CONCLUSIONS: The students gained new, exciting insights much more often during the paediatrics course than before. We as teachers found that voting during lectures could easily overcome some of the obstacles of good lecturing.

Education, Medical↗

PubMed2002

Peer consultation as a method for promoting problem-based learning during a paediatrics course.

In problem-based learning (PBL) there are problems during tutorial group sessions, for example lack of participation, interaction and cohesion, and withdrawing. The authors evaluated whether these problems could be avoided with a peer consultation model. Peer consultation takes advantage of cooperation between students by encouraging them to accept more responsibility for learning from their peers. Forty-nine fifth-year students participated in three group sessions where they solved a paediatric case problem. The students were working in small groups, assuming the following roles in turn: presenters, facilitators and observers. The students reported that this consultative method forced one to actually define the problem, helped to develop communication skills and to identify problematic issues from different viewpoints and offered the possibility to evaluate personal problem-solving strategies. The method also gave an opportunity for students to learn in practice how to utilize new technology in data searching. These experiences suggest that the model of peer consultation adds new flavour, increasing enthusiasm in problem-based learning.

Cooperative Behavior↗