4 Reasons Brunel Medical School Uses Team-Based Learning

Whilst doing your Medical School research it’s very important that you find out what the main method of teaching is at the respective medical school.

Firstly, it is important to know that there are four key different teaching styles that you’ll find in UK Medical Schools:

1. Traditional is when you learn the scientific theory first and move to clinical settings after a few years.
2. Problem-based Learning (PBL) was pioneered by the University of Manchester, and has been adopted by many Medical Schools in the UK. With PBL lessons you’ll be given a medical case that you need to solve and learn from. There is often a tutor to help guide you, and you’ll mix group work with self-directed learning.
3. Case-based teaching is less common. It’s when the Medical School will use a case to spark your interest and then focus on the skills and knowledge you will need to solve it. Teamwork is backed up with traditional methods like seminars, lectures, dissection, and more.
4. Team-based-Learning (TBL) is the main method of teaching at Brunel University London’s new Medical School. At Brunel, we recognise that teamwork is essential in all healthcare settings. With that in mind, we have developed a forward-thinking curriculum that has a strong emphasis on developing teamwork skills.

Why Does Brunel Medical School Use TBL?

It Develops Team Working Skills

Students gain a great deal from working in teams – from learning how to work effectively together under pressure, to learning how to debate and problem solve effectively and benefiting from learning from each other in a diverse international group of students.

It Encourages Collaborative Learning In Small Teams

Students at Brunel Medical School will learn in small groups of six students, facilitated by our content experts. Our experts are Clinicians, Scientists and TBL facilitators, using TBL-enabled software. This will create a highly interactive and collaborative learning environment for our students.

It Helps With High Levels Of Learning Retention

TBL is different from other methods of teaching in that we flip the classroom around – students receive their learning materials and study this before coming into class!

When students come to class there’s something called a readiness assurance process where they answer questions, individually at first and then in their teams. They receive immediate feedback on how well they understand the content, which prepares them for the application session. It’s an opportunity for students to apply what they have learnt to real life clinical situations.

Working in their groups, students collectively solve problems by applying their knowledge to real-life medical situations. It’s here that content experts facilitate a classroom discussion to help draw conclusions and to strengthen the learning of the session by bringing in their expertise from clinical and scientific settings.

It has been well documented that this method of modern teaching has a much higher learning retention level than other teaching methods – especially compared to seminars and lectures.

It Allows For Constructive Peer-To-Peer Feedback

Medical and health professional experts and patients are involved in some sessions to help students understand the clinical application of the theoretical knowledge acquired. Students will be encouraged to give and receive constructive feedback, a skill-set required in the workplace where health professionals are expected to work with teams from several disciplines. We intend to develop a process to enable our students to highlight the positive behaviours of their peers and develop the skills of constructive feedback.

We are very excited at providing opportunities to our students to engage in deep learning and build strong learning communities through TBL.

Learn more about Brunel Medical School on their website. Applications for 2022/23 entry is now open