Foundations of Pedagogy and Early Adult Learning in Medicine

Apuntes

278© 2018 Archives of M edicine and Health S ciences | P ublished by Wolters Kluwer - M edknow Special Article I ntroductIon The learning during childhood is what all of us are familiar with. Here the child in a protected environment is taught by the teacher, where the teacher determines what the child learner needs to learn. The child, of course, has no prior knowledge of what is being taught, is like an empty vessel waiting to be filled in by the prior knowledge gained by an adult teacher and so whatever the teacher says is accepted by the child in a nonquestioning way. We use the term “pedagogy” to describe the methods mostly used by teachers during childhood. We often encounter such students in the preclinical years during their learning of basic sciences in the 1st year of medical schools where they have to acquire new basic science knowledge, and this is compounded by the fact that they are fresh from high school where the teaching is also pedagogical unidirectional transfer of knowledge from teacher to the learner. These students are transitioning from adolescence to adulthood, and so teachers are in a dilemma as to whether they should continue with pedagogy or switch to met...