Peer teaching is an educational strategy that embraces active learning, it explores the social dynamics and interactions as well as the communication and interpersonal skills that influence learning. Embedded within peer teaching as an educational strategy are several theories which promote active learning. It is very important to have a good understanding of the various philosophies underpinning the learning process, because of the numerous variables that have to be considered in order to make the implementation of peer teaching a successful exercise in the context of medical education. Based on the outcome of an extensive literature review together with field experience of the authors, the focus of the current paper will be to highlight the benefits and challenges that should be anticipated by medical educators who want to introduce peer teaching into their teaching and learning activities as part of innovation that would enhance active learning among their students.
Active learning can be described as any evidence-based strategy that seeks to engage the students during their learning process by deliberately involving them in participating in some form of meaningful activities, upon which they are subsequently tasked to think about what they have just done. It is learner-centred in its approach, thereby fostering deeper learning on the part of the student. The understanding of how people learn has developed substantially over the decades with different theories and approaches to learning haven been described by various authors in the literature. The importance of this is that all these postulated theories have offered greater insight into the learning process in particular. The current paper aims to describe the learning process and its components with a view towards providing a better understanding of the learning process, exploring some of the theoretical background that underpinned the learning and the learning process.
This study aimed at describing how well the goals of a peer teaching initiative implemented over a two-year period were achieved at a South African medical school from the students' perspective. We conducted a mixed method study to elicit the perspectives of 5th year medical students who had recently completed a course that involved peer teaching during the 2016 academic year. Participants were purposefully sampled, and data were collected through focus group discussion (FGD) for the qualitative phase, and semi-structured questionnaires for the quantitative phase of the study. The FGDs were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed thematically, using an inductive approach to identify the emerging themes. The quantitative data obtained from the semi-structured questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive analysis, and the results presented in percentages and frequencies. A total of twenty-seven respondents took part in three FGDs, each group comprised nine participants. The number of completed semi-structured questionnaires were sixty-six. Three major themes emerged from the results namely, being a peer teacher, being a peer learner, and students' recommendations. The results showed that the implementation of peer teaching exercise motivated active learning among the students who 'taught' their peers, firstly, through their preparation for the peer teaching activity and secondly through the actual teaching itself. However, this kind of motivation was not reported by the participants who were not opportune to 'teach' during the exercise. The implementation of peer teaching model is effective in promoting active learning among medical students. Further research is needed to refine the strategies adopted and to identify alternative activities other than "teaching" during peer teaching exercise.
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