Teaching the millennial generation of medical students

The millennial generation, those born between 1984 and 2000, are influenced by new technologies that shape both their approach to life in general and learning specifically. Learning and teaching now and in the future is fundamentally different as a result of technology and its impact on learners, thus changing the role of the modern educator. In order to facilitate communication and peer teaching, several days prior to the scheduled class period students were given a reading assignment, a topic handout with learning objectives (issues), and a PowerPoint presentation with and without an audio overlay. At the beginning of the scheduled class period the students were given a multiple choice individual readiness assessment quiz of 8 questions using Turning Point Technologies clickers. After each question, the question distractors were discussed. Using the same procedural approach, a group readiness assessment (GRA) quiz followed with the groups consisting of students sitting in adjacent seats. The students discussed the question and the distractors, and each student submitted their individual answers, but did not need to follow the group's consensus. Discussion of the correct and incorrect answers followed. After the GRA quiz, a survey was done to evaluate the effectiveness of the peer teaching approach. Ninety percent of the students agreed or strongly agreed that peer teaching is an effective learning approach.