Student centred approach allows to put students first in the learning process. In any medical university, the learning context is a complex notion. All classes have a diversity of students with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, intelligence levels, temperaments and values.
Student-centered learning approach allows medical students to become active participants in the discovery of learning processes from
an autonomous viewpoint. It is increadibly helpful in the educational process as each student becomes more responsible, motivated, encouraged and rather proactive.
This approach gives following benefits:
- The students are responsible for their own learning.
- The learning process becomes rather active than passive.
- Each student has an opportunity for deep learning and understanding from first hand personal experience that comes through direct involvement.
- A student becomes an autonomous learner, obtains freedom of expression and respect within the students;
- An interdependence between teacher and student appears and team work results in mutual providing, tolerance and acceptance.
On the other hand, when implementing this approach in the learning process of medical students, every teacher/professor must include the following elements:
- Making the medical student more aware of what they are doing and the reason for doing it.
- Making the medical student more active in obtaining new knowledge and acquiring new skills.
- Focusing on interaction and feedback.
- 'Sitting beside' the student in the learning process.
At the same time, student centred learning approach can face some challenges when being implemented in the learning process of the medical university. It may be challenging to allow the medical students to choose time and place. It can be also hard to provide the student with the choice of content to learn, as well as acknowledge and use student's strengths and weaknesses as medical education requires an integrated system of learning approaches, and the student centred approach can be just one of them.