I strongly, totally, 100%, heartily agree! I have long wanted to post a message about attitude toward tests and the learning experience, and this seems like a good time to do it! Some of you recall that when I send back a graded test, I often refer to it as "a learning exercise." I so wish that you would view our assessments that way.

Many students come to our course dragging a lot of heavy emotional baggage accumulated from past school experiences. I'm not talking about "knowledge gained." I AM talking about negative ideas that produce doubt and fear; this clogs up the neural pathways in the brain and "gets in the way" of efficient learning, not to mention taking all the fun out of it! (The one thing that I do NOT like about being a distance learning instructor is that I don't seem to be able to impart "the fun stuff." Back in the day when I taught highschool and junior high, I was occasionally "accused" of making learning fun--and I'm talkin' making learning GRAMMAR fun. It seems that I require a classroom with face-to-face contact in order to make that happen.)

Our assessments are not indicators of how intelligent you are or your overall value as a person. What they do measure is your ability to recall . . . at that point in time but not forever and for all time--hopefully, you'll learn even more, but I digress . . . they measure your ability to recall what you have learned about a given "body of information" -- no pun intended. As "learning exercises," they offer you the opportunity to take a giant leap forward in organizing and processing that information; and, hopefully, our comments and corrections fill in the gaps for you in a way that adds to that knowledge and enables you to retain it! WOW! As for the grade, did I say anything about grade? The ultimate goal of our course is to prepare you for employment, not valedictorian!

Please don't change the way you teach. This course is hard and needs teachers like yourself to relay just how difficult the course really is. I would never have done as well as I did had it not been for the way you grade and leave notes.

I will admit that after I would take a test and you or RedPen would grade it, I would be determined to get it right the next time. I had that "Ha, I'll show you I learned it" attitude.

I think all students should view the grading process as a learning one. If you get mad about the grade, just be sure to learn from it and make yourself a bet that you'll "show" them next time by remembering it.

RedPen and Rosemary: You guys are great! Please don't change.

Sam

I have taken MANY courses in my life. Although most teachers and students alike decry the destructiveness of the grading system and yearn for true learning experiences, the job market doesn't seem to allow it.

I know we all wish it weren't so. Any thoughts on this, anyone?

We allow students to do retakes of any transcription assessments if they make less than an 'A' on it. We don't really care about the grade. That is not the important thing. We just want to know that the student has an excellent knowledge of the material taught on that assessment. The employers rarely if EVER see the grades you make. The truth is, students who are able to do well on OUR assessments usually test well for the medical transcription employers. Our tests are often a good indication of how you are going to test for them. So, we really don't care about the grade. We care about future placement options for you.

An 'A' student should have more placement options than a 'B' student, etc. A consistent 'B' student may have to work at a hospital or clinic doing clinic notes or manuscript work for a doctor writing medical journal articles. An 'A' student may do H&Ps, operative reports, discharge summaries and just about anything else you can throw at them. The better your skills, the more options you will have at graduation.

Remember that if you have a consistent 'B' average right now or maybe a 'C' or lower, you are NOT lost. Keep learning from your errors. Read those corrections, comments and suggestions for improvement. LEARN from your mistakes and retake those exams until you have the kind of a grade that indicates real understanding of the material. The employer may never know that you started with a 'D' and ended up with an 'A' and in fact won't even care. They will just know that when you tested with them, you did well and they hired you. Does this help a little?

I have been talking with other mt's lately and found out one funny piece of information. I have been told that others who have either listened to Andrews tapes or have known someone that has taken the course has said that your tapes are a walk in the park next to most of your average "real doctor" dictations.

The tapes are difficult but I think this is a good thing since it will help prevent a student from getting too discouraged those first few weeks on the job.

Each student should take advantage of the retakes on tests. There were a few tests that I was short a few points just a fraction of a point from making an A. I studied what I had difficulties with then did the retake and did get that A. The effort now pays for itself later.

There was one word on a test that was in slang form. I missed it by a mile and had a hard time spelling it when I did learn what the word was. I can tell you now that if Rosemary was to call me up 10 years from now and ask me how to spell that word or what it was slang for, I would know it. How's that for drilling it into someone's head? I'm rather proud of it and hope that Rosemary is too. I can also say that thanks to RedPen, I'll always be sure to double check my plural and singular endings.

Sam

About those "walk in the park" tapes, I think the beginning medical transcription tapes probably are. Many schools use those alone. Nothing more. That's not enough. The others are tough enough to be comparable to the CMT exam. Some of them were actually on CMT exams in the past.

When you first start out, you will encounter physicians who start out very s-l-o-w-l-y with, "This is a 48-year-old white female in no acute distress." Then they will speak so fast that if you didn't already know pretty much what they were supposed to say, you wouldn't understand it when you heard it. That will take some adjustment. Let's say I happened to be an experienced MT with 30 years of experience. If I switched to a new account, I would STILL have a few anxious moments when I started hearing those new doctors with their own peculiar ways of dictating. I don't really think they are necessarily harder, but they are faster at times. One of the best experts in the field told me that we shouldn't even use General Medicine at ALL! It was too hard and might frustrate our students. I would rather frustrate you guys now when you aren't being paid on production.

(just kidding. There ARE no harder training tapes available or I would already have them. When they make them, I'll add them to our program.) OHHHH! That reminds me! I HAVE arranged to add some harder ones. They just haven't arrived yet. These are not available to be bought anywhere. A very kind person responded to my cries that I wanted tougher work for my students! Tougher and FASTER! They are supposed to be here in the next month or so. We will try to use them as kind of a buffer between modules II and III. The Module III instructor will probably grade them, but the grade won't be held against you. The goal will be to transition students from Module I student-style work and Module II on-the-job-style work to Module III even more authentic on-the-job-style work with Q/A-style assessment and evaluation. Ha HA! (I can see it now. Everyone will be puttin' the pedal to the metal trying to get through before those tapes arrive. Hmm. I think we could make them available to advanced students and graduates too, couldn't we?)

[This message has been edited by Linda Andrews CMT (edited October 26, 1999).]

Linda, if there were harder tapes to be found, you would definitely find them. LOL
You remind me of a particular training stretch we did when I was in guide dog school. We did a course which was called "The Horseshoe". It was a subdivision-type area where you really couldn't get lost. However, you did the course during the day and at night. The daytime was great for us partials. But at night, that was the kicker! I think our trainers called people up on that street and had them purposely leave their trash cans and everything else one could trip over out in the sidewalk area for us to work around. I know that one of the training staff actually lived in this area.

So, with Andrews, the harder the better. I'm just glad I'm graduated!

Sam

Whew, talk about tough!

Sam

YOU WILL BE SO GLAD FOR ALL THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF DICTATION -- AND FOR ALL THE TAPES YOU HAVE TRANSCRIBED -- WHEN YOU GET A JOB. Right now I would say the biggest thing is to train your LISTENING AND HEARING skills.

So far, I have only done transcription for three doctors. Two of these doctors' dictations have presented a "CHALLENGE" for me. One of these doctor's dictations ALWAYS presents a challenge for me. The other doctor is generally very easy to transcribe.

The AAMT tapes are GOOD PRACTICE -- because they present a situation in which the dictation is not "pristine." These doctors just go rattling merrily along -- medication names and all.

I am finding a great sense of satisfaction in the fact that I am actually DOING REAL DICTATION ON A REAL JOB. I seem to be getting the hang of it. I repeat though -- I do think the GREATEST THING I LEARNED was to be able to listen carefully to a "stream or pattern" of language until it began to sort itself out into individual words. For this to happen, I had to be at least familiar with a good deal of the KIND of thing that would be said -- for example -- in a review of systems or physical exam.

YERS TRULEE

FIDDLEE

Terri

Sam- Phew! I guess a number of us "squeaked by," just missing those tougher tapes. Can you imagine?

Where I work, there are some heavily accented doctors. There is still one in particular that just gives me a run for my money.

Terri: From what I've been told, Andrews tapes are all in all, harder than the average on-the-job tapes. Meaning that after doing Andrews tapes, the ones you do on the job seem to be easier (on average) because you have already gotten through very difficult transcriptions.

Everyone I have talked to before and after I took the Andrews course highly recommends it because of the challenges we are given. This is not a wimpy course we have taken ladies (and the few gentlemen around). This is a very high quality program that really prepares you for the worst possible scenario you can face on the job. You get a 'taste', if you will, of it all.

Sam

More like a walk through fire in 130 degree heat with no shoes and blistered feet from the thoughts of walking....

Sam

I am definitely pulling my hair out. What happened to that nice and easy GI advanced. Just when I got comfy, WHAM!

Back to the books or the hair pulling which ever way you look at it