The University of Vermont’s medical school just announced that it plans to become the first medical school to abolish lecture courses and replace them with at-home videos and "active-learning" classrooms.
Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine will not be taking such a drastic step in the near future — but it has been taking advantage of the benefits of active learning for a long time.
Penn medical students' first four months of school consist mainly of foundational science courses like chemistry, biology and anatomy, as well as professionalism. Professors are tasked with the job of acting more as facilitators for the students, and a heavy emphasis is placed upon student engagement.
“I think the approach that we’ve taken is learning actively,” said Stanley Goldfarb, senior vice chair of the Department of Medicine and associate dean for clinical education. "It develops a much more engaged student body."
Students are typically organized into small groups which they will be assigned for the entirety of their course. Teammates collaborate on in-class problems, "find your own adventure" projects and sometimes even exams. These teams are meant to encourage active participation, problem solving and unity among the students.
“For the last 10 years we’ve had a team based curriculum in which it’s almost a flipped classroom,” Goldfarb said. This curriculum “teaches the fact that this is the way that medicine is practiced these days — instead of feeling like they’re on their own, students work in a team.”
While the Perelman curriculum promotes this type of learning, it still consistently utilizes the in-class lecture.
“I don’t decry the lecture,” he said, adding that it “serves to delineate what the students need to know.”
Goldfarb partly attributes the students’ increasingly high performance on standardized exams to the benefits of active learning in the classroom.
“We’re very proud of the active learning that the students are engaged in and the high rating of the school,” he said.
The Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent, student-run newspaper. Please consider making a donation to support the coverage that shapes the University. Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Penn.
Donate