We are well into the final course of 2nd year, Science and the Patient!
Science and the patient is actually really interesting as it is the transition course from pre-medical into 3rd year on firms. It means we are learning a lot more about diseases and less about the nitty gritty bits of cells and drugs etc.
This year TBL has been introduced and I wanted to talk about it a bit. I think it is amazing, and one of the best learning tools the faculty of medicine have introduced. Why? Because it actually takes into account what medical students are and utilises it to teach us something. Simply put it is SO COMPETITIVE.
TBL stands for Team Based Learning. We were split into random(ish??) groups that meant we were with people that we probably hadn’t encountered much before.
I’ll tell you a bit about the first session…I was in team 26 (the best of course).
We were given a sheet of 10 multiple choice questions and the whole room were given 10 minutes to complete them individually. Then they were collected. I found them hard! And we had to put our name on the sheet so I hope no one is laughing at my score somewhere.
We were then given time to go through the 10 questions AGAIN but this time as a team. It meant we all had thought about the answers and everyone gave some input to the discussion. The genius bit was that we COULDN’T CHEAT. They gave us scratch cards and we would scratch off the answer we thought was correct and if it was right there would be a star underneath. If we got it wrong then there would just be the utter disappointment of a blank space that would appear. If you got the star first time round you got all the points, but if you had to attempt the points would go down and down until you hit minus marks!!!!
My gosh it was intense. So much discussion, not enough time. Scores were being updated live on the screen and things were just so heated in MDL1.
After going through the questions we found hard, the leaders of the session then gave us a case study of a patient and we had to work out what the patient had. We then had to hold up the answer (A,B,C or D) as a class so if you got it wrong your team would be far too embarrassed so you would actually discuss it.
We then had a TBL lecture where they went over answers, turns out we all need a bit of improvement.
I think it is such a good way of learning. I know a lot more about the course now because I was far too competitive to get it wrong and look silly in front of MDL1. TBL should definitely be continued in my opinion, and could be the basis of a really interesting curriculum addition for years to come.
Mala 🙂
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