supertorontomedic

It is sooo important to have variety in the classroom. We do at least 5hrs per week of practical but not all of it is scenario or equipment practice. Sometimes we go through "round robin" type scenarios where I will ask "what do you do?" then make them justify every step. when one student gets stuck or has answered sufficiently I move onto the next until we have gone around the class. I will use ECG strips and information from real calls that I have done (mostly recent) which makes it real for the students. They know I don't make the stuff up and they respond strongly to it. As MDmedic2FL said, each student must at some point take a lead role. I like the idea of splitting up the group into teams of 4. One person is the patient, one the responder, a partner (who will take orders but not initiate anything on their own), and a 'marker' who has our evaluation sheet (they laminate the sheet and mark each other on each scenario). Each person rotates through each role and learns from different perspectives. Gives them a well balanced approach to scenario based learning. They often learn the most about the actual scenario in the other positions and as a team leader (or attendant) they learn about the stress of being in the hot-seat and being watched. Plus, they each get to learn from everyone's mistakes which I find is the best way for them to learn sometimes.