AN ELECTRONIC STUDY GUIDE FOR PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING

This paper describes the development and structure of an Electronic St udy Guide for Oncology (LETSGO) for undergraduate medical students. LE TSGO is aimed at clinical students learning about cancer. The subject of the guide is breast cancer and learning objectives cover structure and function, behavioural science, public health and epidemiology and professional and personal values. LETSGO is designed to follow the ste ps used in problem-based learning. The student is encouraged to carry out individual brainstorming around cases with the issues identified a cting as the first step in an educational audit loop. Clear definition of prior knowledge is available by way of interactive features, and h yper-text links to core text and diagrams (including microscopic secti ons) precede definition of both broad aims and objectives for the modu le and specific objectives for assessment purposes. Core knowledge is available via hyper-text links. Assessment has three components: open ended questions asking for free text responses linking to 'model' answ ers; extended matching items linking to 'model' answers and providing peer-referenced feedback as a bar-chart distribution, and an education al audit loop referring back to the original issues identified at the beginning of the package in brainstorming. Clear mapping throughout th e guide is a major feature and the student's progress is clearly displ ayed at each stage of the guide. The program provides dynamic access t o the student's existing knowledge base and stimulates new learning ba sed on the student's own learning needs.