SPECIAL DEMONSTRATION

An E-learning Environment for a PBL Undergraduate Medical Curriculum

Bas de Leng MSc (Med)

Department of Education Development and Research, University Maastricht, The Netherlands

ABSTRACT:

Over the past 45 years problem based learning (PBL) has become a well-established educational approach in medical education all over the world. Over the past decade Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has secured a solid position in the learning environments of medical schools. This presentation addresses the various ways in which ICT supports the PBL curriculum of Maastricht Medical School. The focus is on factors that are considered crucial for achieving an effective PBL curriculum: the selection of problems as starting points for learning, the provision of high-quality group settings, the availability and accessibility of information resources, the scaffolding of self-directed learning and the monitoring of competency development.

Case based

In PBL, students have to explore knowledge that is organized around problems rather than disciplines. In the first two years of the Maastricht undergraduate medical curriculum these problems are developed by the teachers and presented as cases. Teachers collaborate in constructing blocks to ensure integration of different knowledge domains and to prevent overlap of subject matter between blocks.

Despite the fact that students work on documented cases and participate in the Skills lab-training program, the learning context in the first two years differs considerably from the context of real practice. To compensate for this much effort is expended to enhance the authenticity of the presented materials. In their third year, however, as much as 30% of students' course work is directly linked to real patients. The tutorial groups work on cases generated by the students on the basis of hospital-based and community-based patient encounters.

The Maastricht Medical School has built an E-learning environment (EleUM) using Blackboard. A special interface between the Student Information System and Blackboard makes EleUM user friendly and ensures ease of daily maintenance. Multimedia (such as streaming video) is used to present cases in a high-fidelity environment.

Resource based

In PBL, student learning is self-directed and active. The tutorial groups use the outcomes of the small group discussion to formulate hypotheses and learning goals, which they then pursue in self-directed study activities using different resources to search for relevant information. In this phase, availability of and easy access to information resources is of the essence. The students integrate and synthesise the results of their information searches in the reporting session.

In order to ensure that information is available to all students, lists of recommended books are selected and generated from the Study Landscape Information System, recommended articles are available in Electronic readers and websites or databases presented in Link collections. The information generated by the students is saved in tutorial group communities.

Group-based

In PBL students meet face-to-face in small groups. These situations suit dynamic processes like brainstorming, planning or evaluation. However, the limited time span (2 hours) and the group size (10 students) make these face-to-face meetings less suited or prolonged exchanges of detailed and precise propositions and responses. Remote group work with asynchronous written interaction can supplement the face-to-face meetings.

To support the collaborative knowledge construction in between group meetings the Learning Lab of the University Maastricht has built Polaris, a building block in Blackboard, which has been integrated in EleUM.

BENEFIT TO PARTICIPANTS ATTENDING SESSION:

Share and discuss experiences on:

· Ways how ICT can support PBL, without threatening PBL’s essential characteristics

· The application of standard commercial E-learning packages (like Blackboard) to support a PBL curriculum

· The need to supplement these standard software packages with self developed software extensions

· The use of computers in tutorial groups

Bas de Leng MSc(Med)

Department of Education Development and Research University Maastricht

PO Box 616

6200 MD Maastricht

The Netherlands

Phone: +31 433881108

Fax: +31 433884140

mailto:b.deleng@educ.unimaas.nl

Website: http://www.educ.unimaas.nl/

CO-AUTHORS:

2 André Koehorst MSc (Psych)

3 Peter Verheijen BA

4 Fons van den Eeckhout MSc

2 Learning Lab, University Maastricht, The Netherlands 3 ICT Service Centre, University Maastricht, The Netherlands 4 University Library, University Maastricht, The Netherlands