David Disbrow:

David Disbrow

ACMD 615

Final Reflection Essay

It has been said that to learn is to strive for meaning, and to have learned something is to grasp its meaning. The two clearly affect each other immensely, and as we are to encourage lifelong learning, “learning something” should lead back to learning again. Learning something can act as a stimulus for learning again, but unlike Pavlov’s bell, learners often add intrinsic associations to the experience, and adult learners in particular can be slower in finding a fluid symbiosis with learning something and learning. As educators, we are interested in the emotional and cognitive components of learning so that they can be incorporated as tools to minimize the gap between learning something and learning again. How can I, the teacher, make you, the learner, feel empowered to self-learn? For example, Bordage would likely recommend that we lessen didactic teaching perhaps in order to decrease the emphasis on learning something and increase emphasis on learning. In his research, 3 out of 4 CME comparative studies showed that non-didactic multimedia interventions were more effective than single-medium interventions. In my experience, the millennial generation, in particular, are well suited for immersive experiential learning and tend to work well in collaborative groups. It is important, especially in regards to the future of CME, that Millennials also begin to learn how to better reflect on their own in order to effectively process and learn. Self-reflection creates the need for practitioners to be more self-aware of their practice habits and personal preferences that ultimately influences patient care. The educator must ideally work as both a guide and a model in order for the learner to understand how reflection and self-assessment can play an intrinsic and valuable role while learning. In order to be a model, educators benefit from exhibiting self-awareness, which stems from consistent reflection as a leader/educator. We are encouraged then to actively re-introduce the educator throughout the learning/reflecting process, not only because the immersive experience is effectively presented with more dimensions in a collaborative moment (Bordage), but also (in today’s increasingly advanced technological environment) perhaps also so that the learner can emulate the behavior of the educator.  If the educator is learning and reflecting, the burgeoning “reflexive learner” begins to understand lifelong learning, which, as this course has reminded us, is the desired goal for all educators. David Boud states, “We are struggling with what it actually means to be learner-centered… We’re in the midst of this revolution in which we’re centering on the lecture and the teacher, to centering on what the teacher can do to construct a learning environment, and help students go through that.” As we continue to regulate competency in medical education, I’ve come to believe just how important it will be for us to better realize the ways in which identifying knowledge gaps in medicine AND education/pedagogy itself can become ongoing parallel avenues for quality improvement and shared efficacy. My goal in faculty development is to create more experiential, learner-centered opportunities (e.g., OSTE, Objective Structured Teaching Exams) so that there is a perceived willingness to grow that can better emerge simultaneously from both the learners and from the educators.