An Initial Experience With "Team Learning" in Medical Education

Journal of Physical Therapy Education, Fall 2003 by Rogers, Janae A

An Initial Experience With "Team Learning" in Medical Education. Haidet P, O'Malley KJ, Richards B. Acad Med. 2002;77:40-43.

"Team learning" is a teaching strategy that has been used to facilitate active learning in many professional disciplines. Medical education curriculum reforms over the past 10 years include techniques involving aspects of active learning as opposed to a lecture-oriented, passive mode of teaching. The team learning strategy was recently used for the first time at the Baylor College of Medicine. This approach was used with a group of internal medicine residents. The object was to determine if this teaching/learning approach could be utilized during lunch breaks to actively engage the residents. The residents were usually subjected to a lecture session at lunch, in which there are many distractions. These distractions consisted of urgent patient care issues, eating lunch, and socializing with peers. Therefore, interactive learning is not often observed. The content covered during this particular field testing with team learning related to the effective use of diagnostic tests. The residents were divided into small groups of 3 to 5 people. The professor assigned identical topics to each group. Each group had to problem solve and report their answers to the other groups. Each group was then able to discuss the reasoning for their answers. The professor facilitated these debates and pointed out the key objectives. This same format was implemented at 2 teaching hospitals on sequential dates using the same professor. Qualitative data were obtained through observation, and a survey was given to the residents to determine their level of interaction during the learning session. The authors reported that "the qualitative observations were striking." There was only one resident who reported not interacting. A higher percentage of the residents were reported to stay for the whole hour, as more than half of the residents normally left during the lecture after 45 minutes, whether or not the lecture was finished. The authors stated that this study was a field test and lacked other groups with which to compare their groups. The results suggest that team learning may be useful in achieving a more interactive learning environment.

Janae A Rogers, SPT, ATC/L

University of Indianapolis

Indianapolis, Ind