Medicine through time

Note - this post will be tidied up and added to later on. Published ‘early’ as a response to this post on the schoolhistory.co.uk forum.

When I began teaching the medicine course I opted to cover things in chronological order and stuck to developing understanding of content and retention of knowledge far too much. Whilst the results were fine, and the kids seemed to enjoy the lessons, it didn’t really seem to be the most exciting method of getting through things, and I felt that there were key issues that simply weren’t being addressed well enough. As a result, my scheme of work was torn up and a new approach used. its far from perfect but has resulted in the lessons being significantly more enjoyable for me and the students; results, particularly for C/D borderline students, have improved and the standard of teaching and learning has been consistently good or outstanding when the department has been observed.

Overview of the ‘improved’ scheme of work:

1) Introduction. Big overview exercise looking at sources and events from each period. making use of active learning to sequence the events, identify themes and factors in the sources and make some early judgements about the significance of them.

2) Medicine in the Ancient World. (AQA syllabus, obviously less relevant for other boards). Introduced what I call 5×5x5 as a ‘content grabber’. Simple method - 5 groups of 5 students who then had 5 minutes to use provided sources / reference materials to create a fact file on a specified area. This created a rage of fact sheets which were discussed, amended where appropriate and added to in future lessons - with a rule that the most important 5 things about (whatever) were included. Benefits of this: in 5 minutes the class have gathered all the information they’ll need for the next few lessons. After another 5 minutes of presentations it’s been shared throughout the group - and notes are available that are accessible. Then I split the content into themes and factors. We trace the role of religion through to the fall of Rome, the development of Public Health, chart the role and impact of government and identify the types of treatment and healers that were available in each of the ancient civilisations covered on the syllabus. These are drawn together using timeline activities such as Ian Dawson’s Change and Continuity in the Ancient World, hotseating exercises and a debate about significance - in the classroom we use Big Brother meets the history of medicine, then follow this up by using an online forum for continued discussion. (The 5×5x5 idea is repeated several times to build knowledge, ensure that all students have covered all aspects and to continually make students think about the significance of events).

3) Medieval Medicine. This section I base largely around a roleplay. (Medieval medicine - downloadable from this page) This covers a range of treatment types, beliefs and influences and gets students to think carefully about the period they are studying. The preparatory work they do in advance builds on their understanding of medicine in the Ancient World and on completion of the exercise we can then start to take a really close look at continuities, changes and the way in which factors have become more or less significant. This led leads into a study of the Black Death.

4) The Renaissance onwards. At this point I switch from the chronological run through to themes. Students know what the background is, have the knowledge and understanding of medieval and ancient medicine that will alow them to identofy change, continuity etc and, I think, the thematic approach from this point onwards makes more sense as a) it just seems more logical to me (but I might be wrong there!) b) thats how they’ll be examined and c) its proved to be quite flexible in terms of adapting for specified units for the exam.

As I worked on the Dynamic Learning: Medicine through time CD’s for Hodder Murray I collated a list of active learning activities that I use alongside the contents of the 2 CD’s. The list, below, shows how I’ve tried to combine use of active learning and IT alongside other methods. Whilst I deliver them as part of a themed approach, they can quite easily be transferred into a chronology based SoW, as outlined below:

The Renaissance

IT intro - Introducing Medicine in the Renaissance. Medicine through time CD1
Hook. Pare, Vesalius and the death of King Henri II of France.
http://thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/PareVesaliusandHenriII.html
ICT task – Why did Pare change surgery? Medicine through time CD1.

ICT task - Was the Renaissance really important in medical history? Medicine through time CD1.
A flexible activity that could be completed individually or in groups.

ICT based unit plenary: What really changed in Renaissance Medicine? Medicine through time CD1.

1750-1900

IT intro - Introducing Medicine 1750-1900. Medicine through time CD1

Spot the continuity. Medicine through time CD1.

Surgery. A play about Surgery. http://www.comptonhistory.com/gcse/surgeryplay.pdf

ICT task - The revolution in surgery. Medicine through time CD1.

Public Health. Significant factors in Public Health. Adapt to create a 1500-1900 version of Public Health timeline exercise. http://thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/PublicHealthThroughTheAges.html

ICT task - Public Health in the Industrial Revolution. Medicine through time CD1.

Fight against Infectious Disease. Germs have feelings too. http://thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/GermsFeelingLifeline.html

ICT task - Public Health or Pasteur? What caused improvements in health? Medicine through time CD1.

Review task. Big ideas in medical history. http://thinkinghistory.co.uk/ActivityBase/MedicineBigIdeas.html

ICT based unit plenary: What really changed in Medicine 1750-1900? Medicine through time CD1.

The Twentieth Century

IT intro - Introducing medicine since 1900. Medicine through time CD1

Hook – All change? Interactive group work analysing the extent to which healthcare and treatments have changed since 1900.

ICT task - The development of penicillin. Medicine through time CD1
ICT task - Better cared for? The story of the NHS. Medicine through time CD1

Summary – washing line activity, factors in recent medicine.

ICT based unit plenary: What really changed in Medicine after 1900? Medicine through time CD1.

The materials on the CD’s are examples of how the product could be embedded into a scheme of work. There’s plenty more on he 2 CD’s and the can be used in a variety of ways other than that which I’ve noted above. Likewise, there are plenty of other ways of tackling the themes, factors and contents of the course - as I’ve done until very recently. The key bits, for me at least, are ensuring that each period and theme is ‘topped and tailed’ with activities that focus on continuities, change and significance. These can be the easy to use examples from the CD’s, or simply good quality introductions and plenaries for units. Washing line and timeline exercises are great for that - and they can be easily reenforced by use of IT based exercises ranging from interactive lessons such as the ones noted above, those found on websites such as those linked to from this site, or created by the class teacher using resources such as classtools.net, contengenerator.net or programmes such as Quandary and Hot Potatoes.

Other:

Assessment - a topic for another post really. Mainly use of sections of past papers along with ongoing assessment of the work produced.

Homework - a lot of the time I set this online via class forums. I tend to get the notemaking element of the course done outside the classroom as much as possible so that I can concentrate on developing the students use of the knowledge, rather than simply managing their acquiring of it. (Needs regular backside kicking sessions to ensure its done though!)

Public Health - a massive area and one which hasn’t been done real justice in this overview. As with assessment, its an area for another post really. My method is essentially to use local history as far as possible and show how changes and new pieces of legislation affected the area.