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Attendance in PA school


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Mine requires attendance as well. FWIW all of our lectures are recorded on mp3 and uploaded the same day, and starting in april all lectures will be done with camtasia (you can see the powerpoint slide and hear the audio). EMED- those offhand comments are still available to students who dont attend lecture with today's technology.

 

The lectures we have with the med students are interesting... They had around 230 in their class I believe, and the lowest I've seen show up was 2 (serious). Usually they have 25-50 people come. The others sit at home, listen to the lectures at double speed and pause/relisten whenever they please, and study.

 

I really dont have an opinion either way on attendance. I personally like it most days, but I can see how not attending and just listening at home could be more beneficial to some.

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Missing a couple days when you're in a 4 year Med School...not a big deal. Missing a couple days when you're in a 2 year PA School...bigger deal.

 

Med school is only 2 year of actual coursework... the next 2 are clinicals. There are 3 year PA programs that have 2 years of coursework and 1 year of clinicals, so in theory it would be equally as bad. But I'll refer you to my post above-- they aren't technically "missing" class if they can sit and listen to it at home.

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acozadd- if you are going to watch a video of the class(to see stuff written on the board) as well as review the lecture notes and handouts why not just go to class. a simple audio recording wouldn't cover 100% of the material and I don't know how many programs have downloadable video presentations of every lecture....some of us old farts use this thing called a "chalk board" or "dry erase board" for spur of the monent stuff that comes up in class and if all you have is an audio tape and handouts you miss that stuff.

I'm taking a postgrad tropical medicine class right now. I just figured out that I am paying over 100 dollars/lecture, 2-4 lectures/day. you bet I'm going to show up every day.

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acozadd- if you are going to watch a video of the class(to see stuff written on the board) as well as review the lecture notes and handouts why not just go to class. a simple audio recording wouldn't cover 100% of the material and I don't know how many programs have downloadable video presentations of every lecture....some of us old farts use this thing called a "chalk board" or "dry erase board" for spur of the monent stuff that comes up in class and if all you have is an audio tape and handouts you miss that stuff.

I'm taking a postgrad tropical medicine class right now. I just figured out that I am paying over 100 dollars/lecture, 2-4 lectures/day. you bet I'm going to show up every day.

 

In general, things are drawn on a board very rarely-- but you are right the drawing itself would be missed by not attending. Like I said, I'm all for going to class and even if it wasn't mandatory I would still show up more than likely. I think audio for each lecture is pretty standard at most med schools (from talking to all of the med students that I know) and there is some appeal to waking up when you please, making a nice cup of coffee, listening to the audio at 1.5 speed while taking awesome notes (wait? what did he just say? Let me rewind and listen to that part again...hmm... now I'm hungry I should make some food *pause audio*). You could theoretically listen to the lectures faster, while taking better notes since you are able to rewind/pause. Any questions could be asked via email.

 

I suppose I could mention that it could also be nice if you ever wanted to plan a little weekend trip. I know that right before some of my breaks there is literally like 4 hours of lecture the friday before and that is the only thing holding people back from leaving relatively early on thursday... when those couple hours could easily be listened to later and in exchange, you'd get a whole extra day added to your break (this would be nice for me because I only see my girlfriend on breaks which are few and far between).

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Exactly. I just don't get it. I looked forward to almost all my classes.

This truly is a different generation.

 

almost is the keyword....

 

there are just going to be some lecturers and some classes that you dont look forward to or enjoy as much as others

 

looking at my upcoming curriculum there are some health services administration courses that we will take that I have had experience with as part of my degree.....sure they are grad level but how much more different can the material be

 

and some people are just dreadful speakers....they know the material but they are just dry, monotone speakers and can bore a rock to death

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People devote their energy sweat and tears getting in to PA school, then complain that they actually have to go! Goto class. Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks.

 

I don't think anyone is complaining about going to class... but I was trying to start a discussion about whether there could be some benefits to NOT going to class, since there seems to be some. Not sitting through class doesn't mean you aren't listening to everything said in lecture/going through all available notes.

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Not sitting through class doesn't mean you aren't listening to everything said in lecture/going through all available notes.

 

Sitting in class doesn't mean we are paying attention either... (not that *I* wouldn't hang on every word the teacher says....).

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I think it's a personal issues if someone wants to sit in class or not. I have to sit in class. I have to be able to see the teacher, it think it's a visual learning thing. I would have a hard time just listening to an audio.

My program has mandatory attendance. It's good to make sure people are keeping tabs but it's bad when people come to school sick.

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almost is the keyword....

 

there are just going to be some lecturers and some classes that you dont look forward to or enjoy as much as others

 

looking at my upcoming curriculum there are some health services administration courses that we will take that I have had experience with as part of my degree.....sure they are grad level but how much more different can the material be

 

and some people are just dreadful speakers....they know the material but they are just dry, monotone speakers and can bore a rock to death

 

Not looking forward to it is one thing.

Skipping it altogether is another.

 

There's a dangerous thinking that you have nothing to gain from material which you think you already know....

Or that a transcript or audio recording of a lecture is the same thing as being there in the flesh....

 

You paid the money.

Your instructors took the time to create a lecture for your education.

Why you wouldn't attend is beyond me.

Again, different generation.

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Not looking forward to it is one thing.

Skipping it altogether is another.

 

There's a dangerous thinking that you have nothing to gain from material which you think you already know....

Or that a transcript or audio recording of a lecture is the same thing as being there in the flesh....

 

You paid the money.

Your instructors took the time to create a lecture for your education.

Why you wouldn't attend is beyond me.

Again, different generation.

 

Again, I don't think anyone is here has complained about having to attend class. I don't see how it is "dangerous" in thinking that listening to the audio of everything said during class is adequate/not as good as actually being in class. Sure, you might miss the occassional drawing on the board (this is a very rare occurence from my experience). But, by attending class and trying to take notes as the person is speaking without the abilty to pause/rewind, you probably miss plenty of what is actually said. Our attention spans fade after 8 hours, how is listening to the material when you are mentally ready a negative?

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