STRIKING A CHORD WITH STUDENTS: USING MUSIC TO ENHANCE TEACHING

INTRODUCTION: Music is used in medicine for relaxation and to stimulate the brain. Music is also utilized by educators in basic science and medicine to enhance student learning. As educators, our role must be to motivate students by innovative teaching methods. Incorporation of music in teaching allows the teacher to engage students and “strike a chord” with them. Both musical and non-musical educators are successful in these teaching endeavors. Musical tunes with medical themes can promote a stimulating environment that energizes and engages students to learn. PURPOSE: The purpose of this presentation is to identify methods of incorporating music in the classroom or online to help students learn and retain the difficult concepts required in their professional discipline. METHODOLOGY: This educator has successfully utilized music as a teaching methodology by singing medical subject matter set to familiar tunes to students, and getting the students to participate in these musical medical themes. Turning Point, an audience response technology, has contributed to these endeavors by the teacher singing questions and the students responding with answers. RESULTS: The use of musical medical melodies in the course Clinical Laboratory Medicine has been positively evaluated and assessed through multiple students’ evaluations. The primary presenter has been recognized as an innovative teacher, and named multiple times as the “Outstanding PA Faculty” awarded by the PA students. CONCLUSIONS: The key points will be brought together to construct a plan that helps teachers utilize music in a creative fashion to enhance student learning