This may enhance the notion that the teacher is the expert and knows what the student needs to learn. In a pathology unit in the third year of the Veterinary degree, students write, for assessment, their own learning objectives for a broad study area. There are three advantages of this teaching practice.
Students acknowledge that they come into a new area with a large amount of pre-existing knowledge.
Secondly, the linkage of old and new knowledge is more explicit. Finally, it acts to focus students on the learning process as it happens rather than after it has happened. Most veterinary students are highly motivated and have been very successful in a competitive, exam-based system. They are familiar with units where they are told what to study and expect that the lecturer will provide them with what they are required to know. This is particularly true in the earlier years, which are based on the basic sciences, and act as a foundation for the more applied clinical years.