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ILLUMINATIONS

THE BROKEN LECTURE: AN INNOVATIVE METHOD OF TEACHING

Melaka Manipal Medical College (Manipal Campus)
International Centre for Health Science
Manipal Academy of Higher Education
Manipal, India 576104
E-mail: nayaksathish@yahoo.com
doi:10.1152/advan.00047.2005

An innovative classroom teaching method, the "broken lecture," for first-year medical students is described here. The method is aimed at making classes interesting and enjoyable. We define the broken lecture as a lecture in which a 1-hour lecture is broken into three segments of 15 min each. The other 15 min are used for structured, self-directed learning sessions.

In India, most of the medical schools have lectures of 1-h durations. Although lectures dominate the curriculum, self-directed learning sessions are also included. Lengthy lectures are boring and sleep inducing. Usually, the concentration level of the students starts diminishing approximately 20 min after the start of the lecture. Thus, efforts have been made to break the monotony by incorporating more active learning (1–4). We have tried to make the lectures more interesting by breaking lectures into three 15-min segments and incorporating some self-directed learning activities in the intervals. We applied this strategy to anatomy lecture classes, consisting of approximately 125 students, but it could be applied to other disciplines as well.

In the broken lecture class, small self-directed learning sessions of 5 min each were incorporated. During these 5 min, the lecturer stood silent and played a PowerPoint slide show (a sample is provided as a PowerPoint attachment; see http://advan.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/00047.2005/DC1). The slides depicted parts of human body and listed questions related to those pictures. The questions asked were either related to the next 15-min segment or to upcoming lectures. The students were asked to use the texts and have discussions with their peers to find answers to the questions. Three such 5-min sessions were held; the first at the end of 15 min, the second at the end of 35 min, and the third at the end of 55 min.

The students seemed to enjoy this type of lecture more than the 1-h, nonstop lectures. According to feedback collected from the students, it was evident that the lectures were interesting, enjoyable, and thought provoking. They agreed that the lectures helped them brainstorm about the next few lectures and provided well-structured learning assignments before the next lecture.

We describe these broken lectures as student-friendly, student-centered lectures. Through these lectures, students can be driven to think, apply prior knowledge, interact with their peers, and establish what to learn for the next class. With certain modifications, such as the use of flow charts and diagrams, this strategy could be used in other disciplines such as biochemistry and physiology.

	REFERENCES

TOP REFERENCES

 

1. Carbone E. Teaching in Large Classes. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 1998.
2. Ebert-May D, Brewer C, and Allred S. Innovation in large lectures. Teaching for active learning. Bioscience 47: 601–607, 1997.[CrossRef]
3. Johnson DW, Johnson RT, and Smith KA. Active Learning: Co-operation in the College Classroom (2nd ed.). Edina, MN: Interaction, 1998.
4. Nayak SB, Somayaji SN, and Ramnarayan K. Blunder lecture–an innovative method of teaching. Adv Physiol Educ 29: 130–131, 2005.[Free Full Text]

This Article Supplemental Powerpoint Submit a response Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Nayak, S. B. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Nayak, S. B.