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Medical Education
Forum Sharing & Learning Together Jointly organized by &
Topic: How Can We Motivate Our Students to Learn? Speaker: Professor E J Wood Date: Friday, 14 January 2005 Time: 5.30 pm -7.00 pm Venue: Pharmacology Lecture Theatre Synopsis: People
learn because they are interested and want
to learn. Students may be interested but they also need to learn to pass the examination: this may be the motivation
or driving force for their studies. When people are learning it is helpful
for them to be doing: learning
whilst actively doing is more likely to be successful than sitting passively listening
to a lecture. In the process of learning it is important that the learner
receives feedback, both from
others and him/herself. Feedback both corrects and encourages the learner. In
the course of learning, time is required for digesting new information. This means going over the information,
organising it and putting it into the context of one's
own pre-existing knowledge. Motivation is an emotion and it is important that
lecturers and teachers understand these emotions and the issues involved and organise their teaching appropriately in order to encourage
successful learning. During
learning, and at the end of learning, assessment takes place which evaluates
the success of the learning. Students may undertake shallow or deep learning
and to a large extent this depends on what the assessment (the examination)
demands. Actually students undertake strategic learning: their reaction is to
give what the assessment demands. Since we, the teachers, set the assessments
we should be able to control the way in which students learn. These ideas
will be discussed in the context of teaching in the Biosciences where the amount
of information and complex ideas are increasing exponentially. Enquiries: please contact Ms Ng Yi Yu, Administrative Officer,
MEU at: mednyy@nus.edu.sg |