Planning peer assisted learning (PAL) activities in clinical schools
- PDF / 484,265 Bytes
- 7 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 113 Downloads / 192 Views
REVIEW
Open Access
Planning peer assisted learning (PAL) activities in clinical schools Annette Burgess1,2*, Christie van Diggele2,3, Chris Roberts1,2 and Craig Mellis4
Abstract Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) is well accepted as an educational method within health professional education, involving a process of socialisation among students. PAL activities provide a framework whereby students are permitted to practice and develop their healthcare and teaching skills. However, the success of PAL activities is dependent upon two key factors: the “agency” of the individual students, that is, their willingness to participate; and importantly, the “affordance” of the activity, that is, the invitational quality provided by the clinical school. The purpose of this paper is to assist healthcare educators and administrators responsible for curriculum design, course co-ordination, and educational research, in developing their own PAL activities. Health professional students and junior health professionals leading or participating in PAL activities may also find the paper useful. Based on the authors’ collective experience, and relevant literature, we provide practical tips for the design, implementation and evaluation of PAL activities.
Background Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) activities encompass “People from similar social groupings who are not professional teachers helping each other to learn and learning themselves by teaching” [1]. Within health professional curricula, PAL is well accepted and utilised as an educational method, involving a process of socialisation, often with junior and senior students acting as tutees and tutors respectively. PAL activities provide a framework whereby students are permitted to practice and develop their healthcare and teaching skills [2, 3]. Through the contribution of students’ varied experiences, and the use of shared resources, students learn with and from each other. However, the success of PAL activities is dependent upon two key factors: the “agency” of the individual students (tutors and tutees), that is, their willingness to participate; and importantly, the “affordance” * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 The University of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Sydney Medical School - Education Office, Edward Ford Building A27, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 2 The University of Sydney, Faculty of Medicine and Health, Sydney Health Professional Education Research Network, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
of the activity and the workplace, that is, the invitational quality provided by the clinical school [4]. To clarify terms used within this paper, we refer to the ‘tutor’ as the students who are assisting their student peers with their learning; and we refer to the ‘tutee’ as the students being assisted in their learning by the student peer ‘tutor’. A common purpose for implementation of PAL programs is the requirement of students to teach in their future care
Data Loading...
