From: Howard C. Berkowitz (hcb@gettcomm.com)
Date: Mon Jul 19 2004 - 14:07:48 GMT-3
At 3:08 PM +0100 7/19/04, Richard Dumoulin wrote:
>On the other hand you'll only get one point of view. I strongly recommend
>going with at least two vendors like IPExpert, NMC, CCBootcamp ...
>
>--Richard
I agree completely that it's best to go with more than one vendor.
Indeed, with the specific focus being the CCIE lab, it's a fine idea
for people to try to write down at least one practice scenario and
exchange it with a colleague. Don't be surprised if writing scenarios
turns out to be quite a challenging exercise of its own. Even if it's
not up to the standard of people that have written a lot, the
experience of doing it will teach you a lot.
In like manner, it's surprisingly hard to write good prep exam
questions, especially when you also provide an explanation of correct
and incorrect answers. One of the challenges here is to figure out
how to write what the psychologists call "distractors" -- not answer
choices that are obviously wrong, but are only subtly wrong.
In the overall learning process, I like to think not just of the ways
individuals best acquire information (i.e., visual, tactile, aural),
but of the nature of the information itself. There's a division used
in medicine that tends to be very controversial, since insurance and
other reimbursements depend on it, but is quite relevant here.
What physicians do can be divided into "cognitive" and "procedural"
services. Taking a history, evaluating physical exams and lab
results, giving health maintenance advice, and forming a diagnosis
are examples of things that are cognitive. They are harder to measure
even in terms of the time they take, because they deal with talking,
writing, thinking, and understanding.
Procedural actions are things like appendectomies, taking and reading
an X-ray or CT scan, colonoscopy, doing a blood chemical test, etc.
All of these things tend to focus around a piece of equipment or a
specific manual action, and are easier to categorize for financial
purposes. One of the things that annoy lotds of doctors is that
procedural things tend to be better compensated because they are more
measurable, and some of the best-compensated doctors are those that
can delegate parts of the procedure to technicians (e.g.,
pathologists, radiologists).
Why do I bring up the cognitive vs. procedural distinction here? In
many respects, passing a written test exercises cognitive skills.
Passing the CCIE lab emphasizes procedural skills. Medical schools
have learned that you teach cognitive and procedural skills somewhat
differently. Perhaps a silly example, but for those of you who
watched the TV show "ER" when Dr. Benson was a resident, you'd
occasionally see him doing something with thread while doing
something else like reading, listening to music, etc.
He was doing something that real surgical residents do a LOT, to make
a very necessary procedural skill automatic: tying surgical knots
one-handed. Case presentations, sometimes with lots of references and
sometimes with lots of very tough questions, are good ways to learn
cognitive skills. If you ever watch a senior physician taking a
group of juniors or medical students on ward rounds, you probably
will notice the professor talking generally about the patient's
condition, then ask for students to explain some aspect of that
disease process, or what their differential diagnostic strategy would
be.
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