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Near‐peer teaching in an anatomy course
Author(s) -
Omaña Rodrigo Enrique Elizondo,
López Santos Guzmán,
Bahena Eduardo Navarro,
Durán Claudia Pámanes
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.531.8
Subject(s) - tutor , medical education , gross anatomy , curriculum , dissection (medical) , course (navigation) , anatomy , teaching method , psychology , mathematics education , medicine , pedagogy , engineering , aerospace engineering
The near‐peer teaching has been used in anatomy labs to utilize the tutor's experience to supervise students’ activities and to act as the instructor in the laboratory. The goal of the present study was to describe the design and implementation of an anatomy course program with a large number of registered students that utilizes near‐peer teaching as a strategic solution, as well as to evaluate students’ perceptions of this program. Due to the large number of students who enroll in the Anatomy course each semester, near‐peer teaching was implemented as a strategy in which instructors (e.g., senior students) participated in the theoretical or practical activities. A total of 700 students were registered for the anatomy course, of which 558 (79.7%) agreed to participate in this study. In general, the practical section (e.g., the clinical hour, image anatomy, and laboratory anatomy) of the course was viewed most favorably (54.8%, n=306), with the practice of dissection/prosection in the laboratory as the highest valued (34.9%, n=195). Near‐peer teaching is a viable option that satisfies the demands of modern curricula using small groups to stimulate learning, despite a large number of students.