How well do you know Generation Y? This mini-boom generation was “born digital,” raised during a time when the Internet had always existed and just kept getting more important in their education and social lives. They are more like you than you think, in some ways, and completely different in others. To prosper in academia, you need to understand how to help them learn and succeed.
Active. Sensing. Visual. Sequential. Each one a valid way that you and your students may learn. Each one requiring a different instructional approach from you so your students will have every advantage you can offer them. Coursework in the ITL will reveal your prevalent learning style and help you discover the teaching strategies you need to master.
In a perfect world, you would have all relevant information and be able to provide definitive answers to every question. In the real world, of course, these conditions seldom occur, so your students need to develop a way to arrive at correct conclusions with limited facts. You'll need to teach them the skills associated with interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and clinical decision making, so they can provide evidence-based care to benefit their patients.
Ernest Boyer, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning, once said that a poor surgeon hurts one person at a time and that a poor teacher hurts 130. In the ITL, you will learn the chair-side best practices that will elevate your teaching skills and create a clinic environment where students will thrive. This is where the lessons of critical thinking, learning styles, and generational differences come together!
