One game and different styles

I have enjoyed watching and playing some games from my school days. Some of my learning experiences have had their origin from such occasions.

As I watched these three men positioning themselves to receive the volley ball in  a warm up session, I discovered the differences they display in the way they stand, bend, stretch their hands and focus on the arriving ball. Each of them is ready to receive the ball but in a different way.

They were coached by the same trainer; they have been playing together for three years. Each of them is a good player. What separates them is their individual style.  

Yesterday, a resident dropped in to chat and what was upon his mind was about the way, the entrance tests for post graduate admissions are conducted. Most of the tests are based on factual information one can remember. He said that he is able to think rationally and make sense of a problem and work out the answer. After all, the clinical contexts in which we work, are occasions to get trained in 'problem solving'. Why is that the entrance tests favour those who perform well in memorising?.

I was disturbed by this question. In real life, we give allowance to individual variations. But in examinations, we still have standard stipulated approach, where most of the questions are memory based and exclude a consideration  for those who have a different style of learning. 

We are sensitive to protest against any form of discrimination. I wonder whether those who are in education planning, consider that our examinations can be discriminatory, favouring those with one style of learning!  

How can a change be possible! One practice I find becoming common in some medical school is  distribution of credits spread over the duration of the whole course, rather than confined to a few exit examinations. This ensures more sustained learning efforts by students, promoting different learning approaches students would benefit from. The skills needed for memorising, doing  a project to study a clinical situation, clinical bed side appraisals, group work to solve a social challenge linked with an illness, family counselling, therapeutic monitoring of compliance and follow up, etc are different settings where learning takes place, each promoting different learning styles, which can be assessed. 

I feel that these different methods promote more skills than just memory based assessments we still resort to in our examination system. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)