Don’t Lecture Them

Adapting to how 21st century students learn

One aspect of the pilot allowed students to view prerecorded instructional content at their own schedule and pace. Though they weren’t encouraged to speed-listen, medical students put their own spin on things, showing creativity in effective time management.

“This recognizes the reality of how our students learn,” says Robert Leven, PhD, assistant dean for basic sciences education. “The majority of students don’t often go to lectures. They use other resources already, so we’re really just embracing what they’ve already been doing.”

With lecture removed from in-class time, students instead focus on tackling case studies in groups. Through this approach, Leven and other medical college faculty stress, the renewed MD program curriculum better prepares students to enter a residency after graduation and make an immediate impact on patients.

This old “two plus two” model of class learning followed by rotations works, says Elizabeth Baker, MD, associate dean for education, but it can delay the clinical significance of the material presented. In revamping its MD program curriculum for the pre-clerkship period,

Rush Medical College looked at ways to build on the solid two plus two foundation while helping students make clinical connections sooner.

In the new curriculum, first-year Rush medical students will take courses based on organ systems, looking at both normal and diseased states, with an emphasis on clinical application of basic science. Students will begin to develop a range of critical skills early on, from examining and communicating with patients to identifying social determinants of health, to name just a few.

‘It’s about getting them ready for the real world’

Learning in the renewed curriculum will be case-based to demonstrate real-life applications of conditions, Baker says. Students also will have opportunities to work on state-of-the-art simulators in the Rush Center for Clinical Skills and Simulation.

“They’re going to complete an activity where they’re working on a case or working in a team,” Baker says. “I think for a lot of students that’s much more appealing than what I did in medical school, which is to sit in a lecture room for eight hours a day while people talked at me.”

The goal, say medical college faculty, is to train doctors who are more ready to step into a clinical setting during residency and beyond and to understand the roles asked of a physician today.

The college’s faculty and students are so excited about the change that the curriculum transformation already is a year ahead of schedule. “We got students to be the driving force,” Krishnan says of launching flipped classroom efforts. “At the end of the day, it’s about getting them ready for the real world. If students get engaged, then everything starts working.”