Blog as a teaching tool

Can a weblog be used as an effective teaching tool to teach medicine?

Archer has introduced innovative teaching strategies in the past and has reached hundreds of students around the world via. online webinar teaching. With the introduction of USMLE 3 blog, Archer will now explore if social media such as blogs can be used as effective teaching tools to teach medical students and residents.

Blog as a teaching tool! Five reasons why it might be an efficient teaching tool :

A) Blogs are now a new fashion! Several students and young people often blog or micro-blog. Young students might not read as much as we would like them to, but they do blog!

B) What might look or sound very boring in a traditional classroom might gain a student's attention on a blog!

C) Blogs foster creativity and expression. Blog can make a student think, analyze and write thereby, serving as an effective leaning media!

D) Blogs can be monitored by the organizing teacher and a student's thought process as well as conceptual understanding can be caught in his posts and can be readily corrected.

E) A student might feel more at ease to post his thoughts in an anonymous name rather than opening up in a live classroom! When your identity is not being revealed, you will not hesitate to ask any question however stupid you think it might sound to others and that's exactly where a blog opens up a dialogue and corrects your conceptual understanding!

From time to time, Archer will post several topic discussions on the concepts that are frequently misunderstood by students preparing for USMLEs and by residents in Internal medicine as well Family practice programs. Archer will bring to this blog the most updated guidelines in medicine from several authentic journals and sources.

Through this approach, Archer will observe the student's response to see if weblogging is serving as an efficient tool to teach medical students and residents.

Tweet Archer