hey lecom sutdents! i have a quick question (it may be stupid...dont hate though).
i understand that for PBL you are broken up into small groups and that within your group you decide what is important to be tested on.... is it possible that two groups could go through the first two years with very different background and knowledge base?? if one group thought certain things were important but another group didnt?? or are the essentials pretty much covered no matter what??
Hopefully one of the now 3rd years will chime in since they've dealt with the 2 years of basic sciences and how that's prepared them for the boards....
But, from what I'm seeing so far I don't think any two people will go through the 1st two years with wildly different backgrounds solely because of differences in what they covered in PBL. Remember, you'll be switching groups each semester, and facilitators once or twice during the semester so you just be with one group the whole time.
And for the most part groups usually only differ by a handful of chapters on each test. For our last PBL test the other day some groups had 19 issues, some had 25, and within those the main topics were pretty much covered by all. There are always some differences, and they usually seem to be things that may not have been entirely central to the case. You may have skimmed the chapter while looking up something about the case, but for whatever reason your group as a whole didn't pick it to read or be tested on.
I think that's one of the biggest variables that come up in people's minds when really trying to grasp the curriculum. Every curriculum has it's strengths and weaknesses, there's not a "perfect" way to learn this much material. Especially in PBL you kind of need to have a little faith in the system and keep pushing yourself to stay on top of reading and to make sure you cover all the basic science aspects of the case.
And force yourself to go deep into explaining. When going through the case don't just be content to give a surface explanation of why something is the way it is, but force yourself to ask about the mechanism of it, the anatomy of that part, what actually is causing that symptom, etc...
I really can't explain it, and not doing a great job right now either. I never really got into a comfortable "groove" during first semester. I just think a lot of that was being exposed to so much material that covered many different topics. 2nd semester for me was when I really felt like I was beginning to integrate some of these random facts together. Also became a little more conscious of whether or not I was truly getting at the basic science concepts behind each case.
also, what if you and your group don't agree on what is "important?" thanks!!!
This will happen. I've been extremely fortunate in that both my previous groups were extremely good and everyone got along. By no means did everyone agree all the time and there were some good debates, but we didn't let things get too heated or personal. I've heard of other groups having very heated arguments that were no fun at all.
Hopefully by this part in our lives most students have developed health, mature ways of dealing with conflict. There's always going to be a few who just are not to that point yet and like in life, you just have to deal with it the best you can. Hopefully the majority of the group is rational, logical and came come to some sort of agreement democratically even if one or two people are trying to push their view. At other times you just may have to suck it up and deal with some random, seemingly not so important, chapter being chosen.
In both of my groups we pretty much just did things democratically. We all kind of informally agreed that no matter how we felt, that we would go with the majority decision.
Just realized I've had some long responses today. 3 more finals left (at least the "easier" ones) and my brain has just checked out.
