“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” - Robert Beauprez
It’s a challenging classroom situation says Dr Tashmin Khamis: when a question to the class is met with total silence. You feel that you have delivered the lesson well but is the awkward silence telling another story?
Students may be listening, but are they really learning? Evidence is showing that traditional teaching methods aren’t working any longer. That’s why new approaches based on an understanding of how students learn best are being rolled out across higher education campuses.
“AKU is supporting faculty to establish active learning strategies which ensure that the student is involved and engaged in the classroom,” says Dr Khamis, director of AKU’s Networks of Quality, Teaching and Learning (TL-Net), and host of the Active Learning in Higher Education conference at the University.
Active learning strategies aim to directly involve students in the learning process. Such methods require instructors to engage students in class through activities such as role-play exercises and scenario-based assignments. These methods make students interact with one another and reflect on what they’re learning. This helps promote critical thinking, team-work and problem-solving skills which are the foundation of life-long learning.
Participants at the conference shared a variety of studies from medical colleges and nursing schools around the world that demonstrated how active learning methods can lead to more meaningful and purposeful learning.
They also noted that the medical profession requires nurses and doctors to practice critical thinking skills on a daily basis. Staff are expected to think systematically about a patient’s problems and to have a manner that is open to the thoughts of team-members. That’s why medical education must prioritise teaching strategies that help develop such skills, Dr Khamis stated.
Speakers also highlighted the importance of peer-assisted learning in which students learn from one another rather than from a teacher. Studies have shown that this approach is particularly useful in teaching clinical skills since seniors are attuned to the difficulties that younger students experience. The friendly student-centered environment relaxes learners who no longer hesitate to ask questions and continue to do so until they have clarified challenging concepts. This kind of strategy relieves them of the anxiety associated with not understanding concepts and helps them build their confidence, speakers explained.
Dr Haile T. Debas,
chairman of AKU’s Board of Trustees, and
Professor Emeritus at the School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, in his welcome address tackled the issue of how to support faculty in implementing advanced teaching techniques. He emphasised the importance of developing academies of distinguished teachers at universities. He noted that such teachers’ academies are becoming increasingly common as teaching quality has become an issue in higher education, helping create university environments that foster excellence and innovation in teaching and learning.
Another session was on the use of technology to run content-based games in the classroom and the use of ‘flipped classroom’ techniques to deliver a better experience for students.
The annual conference is part of TL-Net’s programmes aimed at creating a community of educators at AKU who strive for excellence in teaching. The event builds on past events on course redesign and the use of engaged teaching methods in the classroom to foster a culture of quality teaching and learning across the University’s campuses.