Search PBL vs Lecture?

[Dead_Meat]

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Can you search for PBL vs lecture learning on http://services.aamc.org/currdir/section3/start.cfm?

(similiar to looking for curriculum or combined degrees by school, etc).

 

[britishmafia]

Good question - I also would like to know this.


On the same topic, I know that a lot of people have issues with PBL? Or am I wrong? It seems like PBL might actually be better for those in MD/PhD programs since it promotes independent thinking and hypothesis testing...

Anyone fluent on the topic like to chime in?

 

[JHopRevisit]

Good question - I also would like to know this.


On the same topic, I know that a lot of people have issues with PBL? Or am I wrong? It seems like PBL might actually be better for those in MD/PhD programs since it promotes independent thinking and hypothesis testing...

Anyone fluent on the topic like to chime in?

Yes, it sounds great in theory. However, what generally happens is that a bunch of smart-ass type A's with ego issues try to prove their intelligence by hunting down obscure, irrelevant facts and grand-standing for 20 minutes before the proctor shuts them up. This is based on what my friends say and observing sections during interview season. Thank god we don't have PBL.

You're surrounded by experts. Let the experts teach. Not to mention, you will have 2 years of medical school and god knows how many years of graduate school to learn hypothesis testing and indpendant thinking. IMHO, for the first few years it's just best to sit down, buckle up, and learn a bunch of rote facts. Medicine is a language, you have to memorize some basic vocab before you can start learning grammar. Unfortunately in medicine there's a crap-ton of "basic vocab."

As for the OPs question, I don't think the AMCAS tracks PBL vs. lecture format, although that would be nice. They do have some curricular information, but at least based on my school, it's incomplete, misleading, and out of date.

 

[ClarinetGeek]

At my medical school, we have both lecture and small group components. I like having both to be completely honest. I benefit a lot from each. Definately pros and cons for each. Lecture gives you the facts you need to know. PBL allows you start applying those facts. Personally when I can apply it, I have a much better understanding of the concepts at hand. I agree that research minded individual tend to benefit from PBL in the sense that you approach medicine from a problem and use evidence to explore it. Of course you are always going to have some who is more of a gunner than you are. There are good facilitators and bad facilitators. On the whole, if you school does it right, PBL can be great. But I also think you need lecture to provide the foundation.

 

[Neuronix]

Haven't seen a school yet where PBL isn't mandatory. Lectures are rarely mandatory. Based on that I'd prefer a lecture based cirriculum because I never went to lecture and mostly learned from notes and books. I also like having the flexibility to not go to campus some days or take off a day to do something like go skiing or go to my grandmother's funeral without having to do make up assignments like I was in grade school again.

Those of you who are pre-meds may think I'm some kind of weirdo/foolish for not going to lecture. It's not like undergrad anymore. Attendence for med school lectures drops off sharply after a few weeks as they simply aren't that useful and the information you need to know is standardized, as opposed to memorizing some old man's ramblings like it often is in undergrad. I never missed a lecture in undergrad (except for mom's third wedding). When I got to med school I studied on my own as much as I could.

 

[JHopRevisit]

At my medical school, we have both lecture and small group components...PBL allows you start applying those facts.

Most schools have discussion or small group components. Sometimes, I got a lot of use from ours (usually my own damn fault for not reading), other times it was a total waste of my time, or I skipped it .

PBL generally refers to something else. At some schools, a small group setting is the primary means of getting information, not just an application. The first time you learn about condition X will be not from a professor, but from a student who wiki'ed it twenty minutes before. You're supposed to sort of "find your way," critically analyzing what they present in order to form a consensus and put it in some sort of context. I'm sure you can already tell that this is extremeley inneficient and poor way to learn. I don't think what you described is the standard PBL format; ie small group does not necessarily equal PBL. Most places now realize that PBL is not all that its cracked up to be. Harvard was the originator of PBL (which is why it caught on so quickly) but now they're moving to incorporate a more traditional curriculum (and funny enough, traditional schools like Hopkins are incorporating more small-group, PBL-like stuff, so it seems like people are moving towards a consensus).

Also, as Neuronix said, you can skip lecture, but not PBL. That's why I like our school, we have traditional lecture, video lecture, small groups, etc. and almost none of it's mandatory, you learn how you want to learn.

 

[CCLCMer]

At my medical school, we have both lecture and small group components. I like having both to be completely honest. I benefit a lot from each. Definately pros and cons for each. Lecture gives you the facts you need to know. PBL allows you start applying those facts. Personally when I can apply it, I have a much better understanding of the concepts at hand. I agree that research minded individual tend to benefit from PBL in the sense that you approach medicine from a problem and use evidence to explore it. Of course you are always going to have some who is more of a gunner than you are. There are good facilitators and bad facilitators. On the whole, if you school does it right, PBL can be great. But I also think you need lecture to provide the foundation.

My school has a mixed PBL/seminar curriculum, and I basically agree with ClarinetGeek. We have required attendance at CCLCM (seminars as well as PBL). But we only have about 15 total hours of classes per week during first and second years (not counting clinic time), so it's not that onerous. We also don't have tests or grades, and there are only 32 of us. So we don't have to worry about gunners because there are no grades for PBL, and we don't have a lot of problems with people not prepping for PBL because there is significant peer pressure to prepare properly. Also, after hearing about how PBL is done at other schools, I have come to realize that our PBL is really more more of a PBL/CBL (case-based learning) hybrid as opposed to pure PBL. We still had learning objectives (at least in the beginning) like PBL does, but we also had tutors who would guide us through the cases and keep us on track to make sure we got the objectives for that week (more of a CBL approach).

Anyway, for whatever it's worth, I really liked our version of PBL. It was even better second year than first year since we knew more and we reached a point where we could all read about everything and come in and have a group discussion (including the tutor). A lot of my tutors were surgeons or internists, and they were great resources who could throw in clinical pearls for us here and there. (There were a few tutors who weren't so great, but most of them were good if not awesome.) PBL has been integrated into the curriculum all along at CCLCM, so it's really tied in well with the seminars. Most of our seminars are also case-based, though with faculty-assigned readings.

Just thought I'd throw out a different point of view, especially since I am apparently the only person on this thread who actually has gone through a curriculum that incorporates PBL. 🙂