Izvorni znanstveni članak
Scaling-up Undergraduate Medical Education: Enabling Virtual Mobility by Online Elective Courses
Sunčana Kukolja Taradi
orcid.org/0000-0002-8777-4505
; Department of Physiology and Immuniology, University of Zagreb, School of Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia
Zoran Đogaš
orcid.org/0000-0003-3138-3887
; Department of Neuro science, University of Split, Croatia
Marina Dabić
orcid.org/0000-0001-8374-9719
; Department of Managerial Economics, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Ines Drenjančević Perić
orcid.org/0000-0003-4964-7721
; Department of Physiology and Immuniology, University of Osijek, School of Medicine, Croatia
Sažetak
Aim To evaluate online elective courses at Croatian medical schools with
respect to the virtual mobility of national teachers and students and virtual
team collaboration.
Methods A student-centered virtual learning environment developed
within the framework of the European Union Tempus Programme allowed
national educational services to design and deliver online undergraduate
elective courses. Three online elective courses were created for
second-year medical students of four Croatian medical schools by using
Moodle, an open-source learning management system. The courses
supported problem-, project-, and decision-based learning and required
students to work in small collaborative teams using problem-solving and
decision-making activities. The purpose was to foster teamwork and produce
better outcomes than those potentially achieved through individual
work. We evaluated the results of these online courses on the basis of the
course test results and students’ evaluation questionnaires.
Results Of 68 students enrolled in all e-courses, 97% (n = 66) successfully
passed the final exam. An anonymous online questionnaire was
filled out by 83% (n = 50) of the students. The majority expressed their
satisfaction with the online electives, mostly because they had more contact
with tutors and peers (n = 47), better possibilities of self-assessment
(n = 38), more flexible learning (n = 33), better access to learning materials
(n = 32), faster and easier information retrieval (n = 31), and better
quality of communication with tutors and peers (n = 28). Although 38 of
50 students claimed that participating in e-courses was more demanding
than participating in traditional electives, more than half (n = 27) would
enroll in an e-course again.
Conclusion Elective e-courses may be a successful model of how faculty
and students at higher education institutions can collaborate and integrate
e-learning into their current curricula
Ključne riječi
medical education; e-learning; collaborative learning, virtual teams; virtual mobility
Hrčak ID:
29250
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.6.2008.
Posjeta: 2.111 *