Background: Teaching in most Asian countries is still dominated by teacher-centered classrooms in which students passively receive information from the teacher. Studies have shown that students' inactivity in traditional teacher-centered classes makes them bored that consequently decrease their concentration and learning. To counter these problems active learning methods are being promoted to enhance their interest in studying. This present study was done to explore effective teaching system from a student's perspective. The aim of the study was to examine the attitude of medical and dental first year students towards teaching methods.
Materials and methods: The study was undertaken at on 150 Medical and Dental first year students. The study was conducted using general questionnaires along with feedback form to know their opinion about different teaching methodology.
Results: A 94.67% of the students were unsatisfied with traditional Lecture teaching. 89.33% favoured combination of traditional lectures and active learning techniques, 74.67% students find active learning methods to be interesting, 77.33% found them as attention seekers, 89.33% are motivated for in-depth study and 85.33% students are motivated for independents learning. 100% students agreed that active learning methods provide opportunities of student interaction while 86.67% students are happy with the teacher-student interaction it provides. Audio-visual aids are the most favoured (94.67%) and test questions are most criticized active teaching method.
Conclusion: Our study disclosed that the majority of student's positively believe in using different active learning techniques for classroom activities.
Keywords: Active learning; Dental; Medical; Passive learning; Teaching.