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Individual and group performance during an interactive lecture: anatomy of a session (211.2)
Author(s) -
Pizzimenti Marc
Publication year - 2014
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.28.1_supplement.211.2
Subject(s) - debriefing , session (web analytics) , class (philosophy) , psychology , elaboration , medical education , mathematics education , computer science , social psychology , medicine , humanities , world wide web , philosophy , artificial intelligence
Interactive lecturing (IL) techniques attempt to shift the focus of the lecture toward student engagement in learning. These techniques, combined with effective activities, can be applied to large groups (> 100 students), yet work equally well for smaller class sizes. The current work investigated the temporal and performance data of students during an interactive lecture to determine the positive impact of such a session. In the session, students were engaged in answering questions individually, group discussions coupled with elaboration, and whole class debriefing exercises. Details from a repeated (8X) IL session in Gross Anatomy were analyzed and compared student performance on a series of questions (individual vs. group) and the amount of time spent in each of the various components of the lecture. Individual performance on questions (69.9%) was greatly enhanced after group discussion (88.2%) of the anatomical concept inherent in the question, and this discussion/elaboration likely contributed to this improved performance (p < 0.001). Moreover, the time that students spent in discussion and debriefing was highly correlated with the difficulty of the concept (as indicated by larger pre/post differences) being investigated. On average, the amount of time students were engaged in activities that were likely to promote learning was similar to that that spent in the whole group debriefing. Students felt that the individual and group involvement helped them to better understand relevant anatomical concepts of the autonomic nervous system. These data suggest that planned activities can serve to promote student learning in large/small class settings.