This semester I was finally introduced (officially) to problem-based learning. I had learned how to teach inquiry-based learning (which is very similar... in fact without looking, I don't know what the difference[s] would even be) with my education degree, so I was interested to see how I liked it from a student perspective. It's... interesting. There are times when I really love it; I love the discussion and coming together to bounce ideas off of each other. The group that I am in has an almost perfect dynamic and word is that we are eons ahead of the other groups in terms of being able to accomplish what we are supposed to from these sessions. There are other times when I am not so sure... this is mostly when I am spending anywhere between 4-8 hours researching outside of class time and creating 10+ page word documents with tons of information. Then, after discussion, sometimes it's still a little iffy as to what I need to know vs "extra stuff" that I had found.
But, all in all, it's pretty good. We just had our first exam that correlated with our PBL sessions, lectures and labs. It was hard and easy at the same time. Mostly, I messed up on small details (like what does a T1 wave MRI show) and vocabulary that I tried to learn but got mixed up on when it came to the test. It will be interesting to see if I pass it or not. The nice thing about these tests is that if we don't pass them, we simply retake them. So, I already know from taking it what information I was supposed to know that I was iffy on, so I know what to look over if I do, in fact, need to retake it. Plus, it's just not worth having a mental breakdown over. Or that's what I'm trying to tell myself.
I am finding my clinical skills lab time easier; we are actually correlating all that boring, background information with real therapy, like modalities. That's been nice. We just started electrotherapy though, and it is intense. There is so much information. We are having 3 lectures on it and 2-3 lab sessions on it. I hope that I end up understanding it all... our professor told us we should plan to re-read our class notes/the chapter in the book at least 3 times.
Other than that, my other classes are not so bad. I am enjoying Neuroscience so far, although to be honest, we have not really covered too much of anything. Exercise physiology is really boring, but I am trying to be a really good student since I've never had an ex phys class before... The only other course I have is my 1 credit Correlative Neuro and it's almost as time consuming as PBL, even though it's not supposed to be since it's a 1 credit course.
I need to figure out how to be more efficient in my information gathering for both PBL and Correlative, because I am just spending so much time outside of school researching it's insane. I need to learn how to reel it in and try to stick to my objectives and not go "too far" into detail if I don't need to... right now it seems like I go too far when I'm not supposed to and not far enough for other things... I think as time goes on and we do more and more cases, I'll get better at balancing and figuring out what is exactly expected of me from the course.
So, with that, I am pretty much done studying for the night; I tried to work on some of my Correlative but J* is on his way home from Tampa, so I'm anxiously following him/his flights and also had to take a brain break from the 3 tests (and 1 quiz) I took this past week.
