The art of demonstration in anatomy instruction

Abstract

As an educator, have you ever wondered why the students in the classroom learn so little despite the innumerable hours you have spent perfecting the lecture? Why, after a brief period of time, do students start losing attention and focus? Many lecturers have experienced this phenomenon, some more than others. To address this issue, in the setting of a fifty minute lecture we've included several demonstrations involving volunteer students and/or economical home created models. Several anatomical concepts, such as the configuration of pleura and thoracic structures and peritoneum and abdominal/pelvic structures, were demonstrated in the classroom using transparent plastic sheets and sleeves, cardboard boxes, plastic bottles and balloons, and often even the students themselves. Such activity was designed to spike the students' curiosity, involvement, interest, and engagement for the length of the fifty minute lecture. These changes were implemented over several lectures during each eight week academic block, and the lectures with such demonstrations were interspersed between other traditional didactic lectures. To our satisfaction, not only did such non-traditional lecturing appear to help the students understand and learn better, but there was better attendance in these non-mandatory lectures, coupled with great enthusiasm, attention, and engagement during the lectures. Our goal in the classroom was to create an environment that helps students to learn effectively. This article presents a teaching approach that engages students by making them part of a classroom activity, which attracts the students' attention and invokes their curiosity with inexpensive home-made anatomy models.Keywords: Active learning; Anatomy Models; Student engagement. ResumoComo educador, você já se perguntou por que os alunos em sala de aula aprendem tão pouco apesar das inúmeras horas que você gastou aperfeiçoando sua aula? Por que depois de um breve período de tempo, os alunos começam a perder a atenção e o foco? Muitos professores têm experimentado esse fenômeno, alguns mais do que outros. Para abordar esta questão, no contexto de uma aula de 50 minutos incluímos várias demonstrações envolvendo estudantes voluntários e/ou modelos anatômicos caseiros. Diversos conceitos anatômicos, como a configuração da pleura, estruturas torácicas e do peritônio e estruturas abdominais/pélvicas, foram ilustrados em sala de aula usando materiais como folhas transparentes de plástico e luvas, caixas de papelão, garrafas de plástico e balões, e muitas vezes até os próprios alunos. Essa atividade foi planejada para atrair a curiosidade dos alunos, aumentando sua participação, interesse e engajamento durante os 50 minutos da aula. Essas mudanças foram implementadas ao longo de várias palestras durante as oito semanas de cada bloco acadêmico na VTCSOM, sendo intercaladas com outras palestras didáticas tradicionais. Para nossa satisfação não apenas esta forma não tradicional ajudou os alunos a entender e aprender melhor, mas também aumentou a frequênci...

Medical Students’ Perception and preferences on Methods of Anatomy Teaching- A survey between public and private institutes of Karachi, Pakistan

“…Participants of the study also pointed out that the duration of lectures shall be decreased and number of demos to be increased; this result may reflect the findings of a study in which it was highlighted that any learning will fail if there is solely the transfer of knowledge from teacher to students without any interaction among (Ahmed & Carvalho, 2014). The second suggestion made was to give additional time for dissection/tutorials by the greatest percentage of students after all, effective teaching is one in which the learner absorbs the most, and it is not about just a PowerPoint presentation provided by a professor (Mazur, 1997).…”