Compartmentalisation

Wow! Big word to start off on.

I was speaking with a group today and one of the main problems in learning anything (including Transfusion Science) is that we compartmentalise eveything - we split up all of our learning into neat little (one-hour) bundles of knowledge.

What we don't do is generalise things - we know about antibody classes because we learned that in the Basic Immunology class but we then have to re-learn it when we are talking about Haemolytic Disease of the Fetus and Newborn or discussing the clinical significance of red cell antibodies. This is too simplistic - we don't have to learn everything de novo each time but we do fail to grasp that the properties of antibodies learned in one class realtes to topics covered in other classes.

This is a huuuuge waste of time and effort!

Windy's Advice

When you get home from classes / lectures read your notes and try and generalise a bit more - have a guess where the things you've learned may pop up in future learning - you could well be wrong but it won't hurt to try - sometimes you'll be right! Then you'll have a jump start on the rest of the class!
Incidentally, by doing this you'll be automatically reflecting on your learning - we all hate doing that but this is a way of reflecting which can obviously benefit you!