Interactive Lecture in the Dissection Hall: Transforming Passive Lecture into a Dynamic Learning Experience

Traditionally, cadaver dissection and didactic lectures have formed the mainstay of teaching gross anatomy, but, apathy of the learners toward didactic lectures and reduction in the time allotted for teaching anatomy have necessitated adoption of interactive teaching methods that require lesser student contact time. In this study, for two consecutive years, first-year medical students were taught selected gross anatomy topics using Interactive Lecture in the Dissection Hall (ILDH). Instead of discarding the traditional methods, ILDH combined the two into a single, cohesive, interactive session, to teach the topic through multiple, short, segments of lecture alternating with interactive demonstration on the specimen. This method emerged by combining the insight gained from the newer teaching methods and reasoning from the cognitive load theory and contiguity principle. Students' performance after ILDH was assessed by a test and was compared with the performance after conventional method of teaching. Students' perception toward ILDH was assessed by a questionnaire. Students perceived that ILDH not only helped them in understanding the concepts better (97.7%), but, was also a better learning experience (99.2%). Majority felt that ILDH should be made an integral part of teaching anatomy (97.7%). Students' performance in the test after the unified approach of ILDH was significantly better than with the split-source format of conventional methods. Students' satisfaction, improved scores, and time efficiency indicate that ILDH may be an optimum method for teaching selected topics in anatomy.