This week I did an EBM “lecture” based around the game show jeopardy. Now I know this isn’t anything new. Lots of teachers have used jeopardy format to teach. The point is that it took the content of “EBM Potpourri” (a group of topics that don’t fit well in other lectures that I give) and made it more interesting than a traditional 1 hour lecture (which is how I have given this lecture in the past).

The challenge when doing this to figure out your main teaching points and only include them since you don’t have a lot of extra space for less important topics (but shouldn’t we be doing this anyway?) The next challenge was to make gradually harder questions within each topic. I made some of the questions limited to certain learner levels only (I teach internal medicine residents that are organized into interns, 2nd years and 3rd years) to make sure every one participated independently at least somewhat. The residents only got about 40% of the questions right….but that wasn’t the point. The point was to convey my teaching points and to engage the learners. They worked in their teams (each team consisted of an intern, 2nd yr and 3rd yr) to solve problems. The competition between teams for “great prizes” (certificate of appreciation for 3rd place team, Rice-a-Roni to the 2nd place team, and lunch with me for the winners) made them take it a little more seriously.

If you would like the original PowerPoint file to use in your teaching I’ll be happy to email it to you. Contact me at UABEBM@gmail.com

What unique ways have you taught EBM topics?