why bother having classes?

[peehdee]

---

Members don't see this ad.

most people in 1st and 2nd year classes dont' come unless attendance is taken. notes for classes are pretty much now a given, plus online powerpoint slides available immediately. not to mention some schools have videos of lectures.
what they teach us in class can be obtained on our own. they just need to tell us what they want us to learn.

so why bother haveing formal classes at all? as med students we don't have any unique knowledge of anything at all. we are a collection of facts, summaries of different areas of medical science. we all know pretty much the same things, some a little bit more, but for the most part the same thing.

 

[phoenixsupra]

most people in 1st and 2nd year classes dont' come unless attendance is taken. notes for classes are pretty much now a given, plus online powerpoint slides available immediately. not to mention some schools have videos of lectures.
what they teach us in class can be obtained on our own. they just need to tell us what they want us to learn.

so why bother haveing formal classes at all? as med students we don't have any unique knowledge of anything at all. we are a collection of facts, summaries of different areas of medical science. we all know pretty much the same things, some a little bit more, but for the most part the same thing.

I personally don't get anything out of class either. I like when they bring patients in to talk about their illness but other time it's a waste of time for me. Worse even, it sometimes jumbles knowledge and makes it actually harder for me to learn. The only time I get anything out of class is when I already know the material. Class reinforces the knowledge then, but not much. But lot's of people really believe they do. Some schools are now moving to a system whereby half the class attend lectures while the other half just study the notes at home. I think that's awesome.

You'd think that would make everyone happy. Those who don't like class are happy for sure. But oddly enough the people who like class are all pissy about this and think everyone should have to attend. Go figure. For many of my courses the professors would give out exam questions in class and actually tell us not to tell the absentees about it. That's just wrong IMHO. We all have different learning styles. Let's respect that. 🙂

 

[CaptainJack02]

You'd think that would make everyone happy. Those who don't like class are happy for sure. But oddly enough the people who like class are all pissy about this and think everyone should have to attend. Go figure. For many of my courses the professors would give out exam questions in class and actually tell us not to tell the absentees about it. That's just wrong IMHO. We all have different learning styles. Let's respect that. 🙂

this is why pbl rocks. you learn the material on your own and then apply it to cases in class with your group. granted, some problems arise in pbl (no one in the group really knows whether their thinking is correct or not...and prof's usually are phd's and prolly don't have background on the subject being discussed, etc) but i think it alleviates a lot of the problems involved in traditional lectures.

 

[jonb12997]

do you guys do dissection in PBL? if so how is it worked into you curriculum?

 

[Blake]

this is why pbl rocks. you learn the material on your own and then apply it to cases in class with your group. granted, some problems arise in pbl (no one in the group really knows whether their thinking is correct or not...and prof's usually are phd's and prolly don't have background on the subject being discussed, etc) but i think it alleviates a lot of the problems involved in traditional lectures.

Most of our PBL tutors are MDs. The first units ( biomed 1 and 2 ) have a few PHDs. Then, with other units such as neuro, well, it's 100 % MDs.

 

[GoodMonkey]

maybe they hold classes b/c they realize not everyone has the same learning style. i am a read it and write it 1000 times type of learner. i don't get much from lecture unless i've already gone thru the stuff at least once on my own. i also know someone (an engineer) who is a totally auditory learner. he takes zero notes during a lecture (of any type) and doesn't really read much outside of that - if he were in my med school class, he'd attend class and then just watch our online lectures over and over and be great w/the info. that's just how he learns. believe it or not, some people learn best by going to class. (i am not one of those people, though. 🙂 )

 

[azzarah]

My school tried this no-formal-lecture thing last year for CV physiology...OMG, after that I really started appreciating lectures. 🙂 I especially like lectures given by MDs. 🙂

 

[lattimer13]

if i specialize or subspecialize in some area of medicine and live near a medical school i defiinitely am going to try to teach during the basic sciences. these PhDs try to teach us what they think is important but fail miserably most of the time. i'd like to teach what's important for clinical medicine and what's important for the boards...not all the minutia BS that PhDs think is important. hopefully more of us feel the same.

 

[euromd]

One of our lecturer published lecture notes. He reads directly from them and doesn't give any other examples other than what's in the "text". This is a complete waste of time. I stopped going b/c I learned how to read in kindergarten. He is a PhD.

MD lectures are worthwhile, especially when they compare normal vs. pathological - I can see that being useful, not only for the test next week but in practice in 20 years!

Required lectures/practicals/labs, can't do anything about that. Hopefully it's interesting (like anatomy - I like it, anyhow!).

-S

 

[CaptainJack02]

My school tried this no-formal-lecture thing last year for CV physiology...OMG, after that I really started appreciating lectures. 🙂 I especially like lectures given by MDs. 🙂

wait, you didn't like an all pbl based class? can you go into some detail about what was wrong with it, etc? the school i'll be going to does all pbl for the first 2 years. maybe our learning styles are different and i might enjoy all pbl more, but i'd still like to get your perspective on no-lecture courses.