Peer Teaching and Learning in Medical Education
Summary
Peer teaching and learning encompasses a range of approaches in which medical students adopt both learner and educator roles to facilitate each other’s acquisition of knowledge, skills and professional behaviours. Modes of peer teaching vary from formal peer tutoring and peer-led skills workshops to near-peer programmes in which senior students instruct junior cohorts. Such initiatives foster active learning, deepen content understanding through teaching preparation and enhance communication, teamwork and leadership competencies. Participation as a peer educator promotes self‐confidence and self‐efficacy in clinical and pedagogical skills, while peer learners often experience a less threatening environment that encourages enquiry and reflection. Digital adaptations, including web-based sessions and blended models, have extended reach and flexibility, responding to evolving curricular demands and resource constraints. Across diverse settings, peer teaching contributes to the integration of professional identity formation, the consolidation of curricula in alignment with frameworks such as CanMEDS and the promotion of lifelong learning attitudes. Its global significance is underscored by cost-effectiveness, scalability and potential to enrich interprofessional education in contemporary health care.
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Peer Teaching and Learning in Medical Education publication trend
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Technical terms
Peer-assisted learning: A pedagogical method in which students at the same or adjacent levels collaborate to teach and learn from one another under minimal faculty supervision.
Near-peer teaching: A subset of peer-assisted learning where more advanced students instruct those in earlier stages, leveraging proximity in experience to enhance relevance and rapport.
Self-efficacy: An individual’s belief in their ability to execute specific tasks or skills successfully, which influences motivation, learning strategies and performance.
References
- Exploring the Educational Value of Popular Culture in Web-Based Medical Education: Pre-Post Study on Teaching Jaundice Using “The Simpsons”. JMIR Medical Education (2023).
- The influence of near-peer teaching on undergraduate health professional students' self-efficacy beliefs: A systematic integrative review. Nurse Education Today (2024).
- How can peer teaching influence the development of medical students? a descriptive, longitudinal interview study. BMC Medical Education (2023).
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