Emily Andrada, MD
As a PGY-3 preparing for my grand rounds, my biggest concern was the risky decision to simultaneously use….TWO slide carousels. Whoah. Let that sink in for a moment as you consider how far we have come and how much more we know and understand about teaching and learning.
There has been a massive paradigm shift in medical education, not the least of which is the realization that teaching and learning are not the same thing. I was blown away by the remarkable work of two cognitive psychologists Drs. Megan Smith and Yana Weinstein who write The Learning Scientists blog and of Peter Brown who wrote Make it Stick. All I could think was “Why didn’t anyone tell me this in high school? college? medical school???” Together, they explain the foundation of effective learning strategies like elaboration, dual coding, spacing, retrieval practice, interleaving, concrete examples. So if that’s effective learning, then how do we meet those needs with standard direct instruction (i.e. lecture)? The hard truth is that our standard teaching strategies need to flex--shorter sessions, active learning, experiential learning, blended learning. We have to respect, too that smartphones and the internet are part and parcel of the current educational landscape.
So this, friends, is where Unschooling Time comes in. Educational technology meets these challenges like a perfectly fitting puzzle piece. Here, you can explore ideas on educational technology applications that inform and bolster innovative teaching approaches. Some resources are videos and others are a collection of informative online links The list in the link below will be updated monthly so be sure to check back!
Unschooling Time List - click here