Cooperative learning encompasses a wide variety of strategies to promote academic learning through peer cooperation and communication. It implies that medical students help each other, share ideas and resources, and plan cooperatively on what and how to study. There are varied reasons why cooperative learning technique will prove to be useful in helping medical students prepare for the USMLE, many of which are highly useful in the medical profession namely:
Cooperative learning is best for activities that demand cooperative thoughts. Included in this are solutions where long-term retention is desired, USMLE review lessons that require decision-making, tasks where solutions are not readily apparent, and review lessons that need higher-level reasoning strategies and critical thinking. All of these are required to answer USMLE Step 1 questions.
Cooperative learning can also be used in open-ended problem solving activities that call for clarification and a range of strategies for finding the solution. Included in this are tasks that require generating assumptions, and estimating and research. All these are best for practice decision-making in prescribing treatment regimens for medical or clinical diagnosis. It can also be used for activities where there are limited resources and lessons that provide opportunities for medical students to apply and extend skills and concepts.
This technique sees the development of individual in reference to his group’s completion of a task, and provides collective group performance which is the essence of working with various allied health professions in the actual practice of medicine. Seeing both of these, the group of medical students is rewarded according to how much all the group members learned.
It can also create a positive impact on the individual’s self-esteem, helping behavior, interest, personal liking, mutual concern among colleagues, cooperation, and attitude toward learning. Medical students learn to negotiate and to be more tolerant of others – a virtue that is highly desirable for the medical profession.
Such technique leads to greater cohesiveness, susceptibility to colleague’s influence and an unwillingness to risk disagreement. It provides a forum in which medical students ask questions, discuss ideas, make mistakes, learn to listen to others’ ideas and offer constructive criticism.
Later on, the medical students become more important resources for one another in the review and learning process. They work together, and help each other integrate prior knowledge with new knowledge as they explore, discuss, explain, relate and question new ideas and problems that arise in the group. Cooperative learning is definitely an indispensable tool in the USMLE Step 2 CK review.
