How many of you are getting hit with this POGIL fad?

[tluedeke]

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I indeed teach and love it.

I'm OK with video taping as long as I don't end up on YouTube. My students like our video system and if it helps them, then I'm all in favor of it. It has cut down on class attendance, and we're still trying to figure out what to do. I definitely don't want to lecture to a camera, but a flipped curriculum of some sort is coming because this generation of students is used to that style of technology, and learning.

OK, let me pose you this question (a point one of the previous responders brought up). Before I started studying towards the goal of medical school, and for the first time in my life, I really sat down, took some time, and evaluated my learning style. As it turns out (a bit surprisingly, actually), I'm a very strong reading-writing learner - I learn best when I'm given a topic to learn, can go off by myself (with my trusty white board), and lose myself in it. Teaching via kabuki theater (e.g. POGIL) is the antithesis of my optimal learning style. Obviously a learning style argument doesn't excuse one from having to adapt to other learning styles, but jamming something like POGIL down everyone's throat in a one-size fits all approach because it works well for *some* people seems like a particularly idiotic way to teach material. This is the process taking precedence over the goal.

For example, one of my friend's daughter is an EM (former combat physician in the Navy for 15+ years). When she was going through Navy medical school for M1 and M2, they would make the material available publicly, then make the lectures optional. In other words, have some flexibility in how to optimally learn the material, based upon your particular approach as a learner. If you are an auditory learner, come to the lectures in the classic approach. If you want to get together with others and do a puppet show to learn it, more power to you. If you want to act like a pre-pathology candidate and head to the library and not come out for a week nor talk to another person, great. Just learn the material.

 

[LizzyM]

OK, let me pose you this question (a point one of the previous responders brought up). Before I started studying towards the goal of medical school, and for the first time in my life, I really sat down, took some time, and evaluated my learning style. As it turns out (a bit surprisingly, actually), I'm a very strong reading-writing learner - I learn best when I'm given a topic to learn, can go off by myself (with my trusty white board), and lose myself in it. Teaching via kabuki theater (e.g. POGIL) is the antithesis of my optimal learning style. Obviously a learning style argument doesn't excuse one from having to adapt to other learning styles, but jamming something like POGIL down everyone's throat in a one-size fits all approach because it works well for *some* people seems like a particularly idiotic way to teach material. This is the process taking precedence over the goal.

For example, one of my friend's daughter is an EM (former combat physician in the Navy for 15+ years). When she was going through Navy medical school for M1 and M2, they would make the material available publicly, then make the lectures optional. In other words, have some flexibility in how to optimally learn the material, based upon your particular approach as a learner. If you are an auditory learner, come to the lectures in the classic approach. If you want to get together with others and do a puppet show to learn it, more power to you. If you want to act like a pre-pathology candidate and head to the library and not come out for a week nor talk to another person, great. Just learn the material.

Work to get the highest possible MCAT score (not less than 99th percentile) and work to earn the highest possible post-bac GPA and then really look at schools and limit your applications to only those schools that are teaching in the style you desire. If you have the very best grades and scores you'll be in the driver's seat and not have to settle for a school that teaches in a style you disdain.

 

[FFH]

Group learning is a good opportunity to learn from others "how to learn" and to figure out together "what needs to be learned". If one don't appreciate this value of the PBL, then it can be a torture.

 

[Goro]

Let me follow up LizzyM's comment more bluntly. In medical school, you will be exposed to different teaching styles whether you like it or not, and no matter whether you're weak or strong in them. You're going to have to adapt.


OK, let me pose you this question (a point one of the previous responders brought up). Before I started studying towards the goal of medical school, and for the first time in my life, I really sat down, took some time, and evaluated my learning style. As it turns out (a bit surprisingly, actually), I'm a very strong reading-writing learner - I learn best when I'm given a topic to learn, can go off by myself (with my trusty white board), and lose myself in it. Teaching via kabuki theater (e.g. POGIL) is the antithesis of my optimal learning style. Obviously a learning style argument doesn't excuse one from having to adapt to other learning styles, but jamming something like POGIL down everyone's throat in a one-size fits all approach because it works well for *some* people seems like a particularly idiotic way to teach material. This is the process taking precedence over the goal.

 

[senzen]

Let me follow up LizzyM's comment more bluntly. In medical school, you will be exposed to different teaching styles whether you like it or not, and no matter whether you're weak or strong in them. You're going to have to adapt.


OK, let me pose you this question (a point one of the previous responders brought up). Before I started studying towards the goal of medical school, and for the first time in my life, I really sat down, took some time, and evaluated my learning style. As it turns out (a bit surprisingly, actually), I'm a very strong reading-writing learner - I learn best when I'm given a topic to learn, can go off by myself (with my trusty white board), and lose myself in it. Teaching via kabuki theater (e.g. POGIL) is the antithesis of my optimal learning style. Obviously a learning style argument doesn't excuse one from having to adapt to other learning styles, but jamming something like POGIL down everyone's throat in a one-size fits all approach because it works well for *some* people seems like a particularly idiotic way to teach material. This is the process taking precedence over the goal.

This reminds of the common phrase thrown around here that goes something like "Beggars can't be picky." I personally would worry about that stuff once I am admitted. Same thing goes for specialities/residencies since so many people tend to worry about that stuff before they are even accepted.

 

[LizzyM]

This reminds of the common phrase thrown around here that goes something like "Beggars can't be picky." I personally would worry about that stuff once I am admitted. Same thing goes for specialities/residencies since so many people tend to worry about that stuff before they are even accepted.

This is just the point... if you have an application that puts you in the top 1% of applicants, you can be picky because you aren't going to need to beg.

 

[BillrothI]

Work to get the highest possible MCAT score (not less than 99th percentile) and work to earn the highest possible post-bac GPA and then really look at schools and limit your applications to only those schools that are teaching in the style you desire. If you have the very best grades and scores you'll be in the driver's seat and not have to settle for a school that teaches in a style you disdain.

I know LizzyM is being a bit facetious, but just wanted to point out that a 4.0/40 alone is not good enough any more; you also need a great deal of clinical experience and research if you want to have the opportunity to pick and choose which schools to apply to.

-Bill

 

[hmockingbird]

I'm glad we didn't have a lot of PBL in M1/2. I thought it was possibly a good idea, but inefficient.

We had TBL where you read, do an individual quiz, then do the same quiz as a group, and then do some cases/additional questions. That was helpful for clarifying the material, and you still got to apply the material more during the cases part.

We also had some classes that used the "inverted classroom" theory where you have readings and/or recorded lectures, and then came to class for discussions/group quizzes. That worked really well for me, not as much class time so I could do everything on my own schedule, but it still kept you accountable for the material, and allowed for the ability to work with other people.

But PBL. We tried it a few time and maybe it just didn't work because it was new for our school. I think PBL would have been fine too with some modifications. But the thing is, if it is not your entire curriculum, it is a HUGE amount of work on top of keeping up with lectures. I would make it more like one or two PBL cases per block and have them spread out, just to give more time for research (unless the material is covered elsewhere like in the lectures). Also, my school was upset when people started sharing resources within the group because it was supposed to be about independent study/research, which seemed kind-of counterintuitive to the whole "group work" thing. (I know they wanted us to learn research skills, but trying to do that on top of everything else was just a huge time suck and honestly, most med students are going to be doing the work on their own anyway and not just be waiting for someone in the group to email them the info, it's just a courtesy IMO to let people know if you found something good.)

I think it could work as the backbone to a curriculum like what I saw when interviewing at Case Western. From what I remember they had a list of readings, and you were supposed to use the PBL cases to help you guide what to get out of the readings (and which topics to read about for that case), and then go over it as a group. Kind-of analogous to the inverted classroom thing I mentioned above. I like to do independent study so I honestly think that would have worked well for me, even if you were to add in having to research certain things for the cases. But I think it's hard to work in as an adjunct to a regular curriculum unless you allot a decent amount of extra time for it. ETA: I also think you should either provide the readings beforehand, or give time between the "coming up with questions" session and the "answering questions" session, because trying to research the answers to a new topic as a group is going to likely be inefficient.

 

[tluedeke]

I'm glad we didn't have a lot of PBL in M1/2. I thought it was possibly a good idea, but inefficient.

We had TBL where you read, do an individual quiz, then do the same quiz as a group, and then do some cases/additional questions. That was helpful for clarifying the material, and you still got to apply the material more during the cases part.

We also had some classes that used the "inverted classroom" theory where you have readings and/or recorded lectures, and then came to class for discussions/group quizzes. That worked really well for me, not as much class time so I could do everything on my own schedule, but it still kept you accountable for the material, and allowed for the ability to work with other people.

But PBL. We tried it a few time and maybe it just didn't work because it was new for our school. I think PBL would have been fine too with some modifications. But the thing is, if it is not your entire curriculum, it is a HUGE amount of work on top of keeping up with lectures. I would make it more like one or two PBL cases per block and have them spread out, just to give more time for research (unless the material is covered elsewhere like in the lectures). Also, my school was upset when people started sharing resources within the group because it was supposed to be about independent study/research, which seemed kind-of counterintuitive to the whole "group work" thing. (I know they wanted us to learn research skills, but trying to do that on top of everything else was just a huge time suck and honestly, most med students are going to be doing the work on their own anyway and not just be waiting for someone in the group to email them the info, it's just a courtesy IMO to let people know if you found something good.)

I think it could work as the backbone to a curriculum like what I saw when interviewing at Case Western. From what I remember they had a list of readings, and you were supposed to use the PBL cases to help you guide what to get out of the readings (and which topics to read about for that case), and then go over it as a group. Kind-of analogous to the inverted classroom thing I mentioned above. I like to do independent study so I honestly think that would have worked well for me, even if you were to add in having to research certain things for the cases. But I think it's hard to work in as an adjunct to a regular curriculum unless you allot a decent amount of extra time for it. ETA: I also think you should either provide the readings beforehand, or give time between the "coming up with questions" session and the "answering questions" session, because trying to research the answers to a new topic as a group is going to likely be inefficient.

A thoughtful response. And I agree. I think the group learning could be very useful if the frequency were dialed down, and the scope dialed up (akin to my earlier post about doing design projects as an engineer in undergraduate and graduate school).

A good idea can be turned into a hideous one via poor implementation....

 

[blueharbor]

I had POGIL for Chem 101. The group role assignments were ridiculous, and the only one we cared about was who had to write up the day's notes. But other than that, I kind of loved it. I didn't need to study for my first exam because I learned everything so thoroughly in class, when normal lecture time would involve me alternately getting lost and zoning out. It was a continuing ed class of older students, so people were pretty serious about learning, which probably helped.

 

[swolebrah]

The last time I did that, I was in middle school. In college, I've gone through PLTL (peer-led team learning), a program designed as a recitation for general biology courses. They focus on classes 8-12 students big, and then they'll lead a discussion that is meant to help us solidify the information in our heads.

Good effort, too bad everyone is clueless and one person (me) ends up having to spit out answers for just about...everything, if I want to get out of there on time.

I hated these things. I once got catfished into one of these learning things, I expected to have some good discussion on what would be the emphasis on the test, but instead was presented with a "get into groups and answers these questions" thing, complete waste of time. Left half way through, but was at least expecting some help from the TA or something lol. These seem to be targeted at the kids who don't want to put in the work and just hope they can learn something quickly by the TA or leader.