TECHNOLOGY ENHANCED TEACHING DEMONSTRATION AS AN INNOVATIVE METHOD OF PEER ASSISTED LEARNING OF PRACTICAL SKILLS

Globally, many medical schools, including ours, have adopted an integrated MBBS curriculum. Within such a setting, mastering visually complex concepts and skills by large student cohorts within limited practical class time is difficult. Further, engaging such large student cohorts in hands-on experiences of practical skills together with appropriate real time feedback to improve their deeper learning, is a real challenge. In this paper, we set out to critically evaluate pedagogical approaches which create an effective collaborative peer-assisted learning environment for hands-on practical experiments or skills and enhance core competencies in medical and health sciences. A search and review of health science/related educational electronic databases for peer learning literature in practical/clinical skills among Medicine and Health Sciences was conducted. The set limitations included publications only after 1980 (up to 2010 inclusive), use of English language and full research papers. Selection of studies was based on participants, type of practical skills, peer teaching, use of technological tools/aids and outcomes of peer teaching, followed by rigorous critical and quality appraisal. The results have been collated, tabulated and discussed. Thirteen articles met the inclusion criteria, representing a range of medicine and health science disciplines of which eight were further reviewed. This review reported largely positive outcomes on the effectiveness of peer teaching and learning, including the ability to increase student confidence in skills practice and improve learning in both the psychomotor and cognitive domains. Negative aspects were also identified, such as poor quality of student presentation. in general, peer teaching can be affirmed as a valuable method of reinforcement of skill acquisition in practical and clinical skills learning.