IT instruments for Problem Based Learning in Undergraduate Medical Education

Problem Based Learning (PBL) is one of the many alternative methods that can be used in medical education. There are different views about its advantages and limitation, but the added value of this method is well recognized. PBL helps students to develop team working and collaboration. It is useful to have an IT solution to support the PBL process. The goal of this research was to identify a web application which has implemented the facilities necessary for Problem Base Learning at the curriculum level: security, collaborative environment, availability, and easy to use. A PBL scenario was developed and a demo Problem Base Learning session had place. The participants were students enrolled in first year at Faculty of Medicine, and the Problem Base Learning topic was biostatistics. We use Moodle as IT support for Problem Based Learning process. A Problem Based Learning session took place and it was a success. The students had no problem using the on-line interface and the general conclusion was that Moodle is a viable option to be used as support for PBL sessions. Moodle seems to be an appropriate Web 2.0 instrument to be used as support for Problem Based Learning. It is very important to recognize that Moodle is just a tool which facilitates learning but it not guarantee of the success. The success of the Problem Based Learning method in medical education is in the involvement of the students, in the skills of the facilitator and in the quality of the clinical scenario.