Abstract

Effect of Innovative Large Group Teaching Methods on Students Learning Compared to Traditional Lectures

A variety of methods are available for teaching students. The lecture is the most common large group teaching method. Common alternatives to Traditional lectures are Small group discussions, Seminars, Symposium, Tutorials, Case based learning which are suitable only for small groups. So there is a need for designing newer teaching methods for a large group of students. To design five innovative ways in teaching methods for large group teaching and conducting teaching sessions with those methods to determine the effect in terms of student’s perception, participation in innovative interactive teaching methods when compared to the traditional lecture method. The study was carried out in the Pharmacology Department, Tirunelveli, and Thoothukudi Medical College for 3 batches of second MBBS students. Out of 10 topics, 5 were assigned for Innovative methods and five for the traditional lecture. Totally 30 sessions were conducted for all the 3 batches. Innovative methods designed included Debate, Playing cards, Role play, and Treasure hunt, Mind mapping. DEEP ROOT MIND was the special name given to the teaching methods. A 10 item semistructured questionnaire comparing innovative versus traditional methods was given to students and graded using the Likert scale. Chisquare test and Mann Whitney U test were used for statistical comparisons. Out of 450 students, 338 responses were obtained. Most students preferred the Innovative method and results were statistically significant (p<0.001) Debate and Role play were the most preferred methods. DEEP ROOT MIND method was more useful for large group teaching when compared to traditional lecture enhancing critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills.

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