Medicles: User generated online medical tutorials - Case study Video Lecture | Teach Online: A Comprehensive Approach for Teaching Online - Professional Skills

Chris Gillett and Chris Bailey were
medical students at bristol university
when they undertook a class about how to
develop elearning content for the
medical program from this beginning they
developed medicals an independent
website when medical students can
undertake online tutorials designed by
other students this case study examines
how the medical system works and also
discusses the benefits of user-generated
learning materials so the package we
created was based on our experiences of
online tutorials if you want to learn or
if you want to test yourself you've got
two forms of learning you've got
full-length tutorials which take you an
hour 45 minutes which are really great
for giving you that comprehensive view
and learning it for the first time
perhaps at the other end of the scale
you've got things like multiple choice
questions which are really quick and you
can cover a lot of grain but they don't
really give you much teaching so we
designed a website which was mini
tutorial based so the basic idea of it
was what we call back bite-size
assessment in medicine we tried to walk
this middle path between tutorials and
self-assessment and give sort of things
that you could do in 15-20 minutes we
would find a subject and we were going
to teach a component of that subject and
then you could test yourself or you
could apply some knowledge which you'd
already gained elsewhere for example a
structure a labeled structure and the
personal ants are answering the question
would have to sort of label each bit by
typing in a little section on the on a
blank space that bit left off so it's
quite a simple idea a lot of things and
medicine is are about sort of taking
content on board learning vast bits of
information which kind of really be done
at first pass these tutorials are
particularly important because it does
allow people to tailor their learning
experience to themselves based on what
they see their level of knowledge being
they could test their knowledge and they
can identify weaknesses in in their
knowledge and this would be uploaded and
sort of stored as a sort of a progress
chart if you've got something that you
can go back to it
it's much easier to assimilate that
information
we were very aware that we could
maintain the site forever by creating
our own content so we opened it up to
everyone we implemented a system whereby
a user could create an account and I
played their own tutorials based on
experience that they've had or or gaps
that they've had or something they feel
like we talk better through this website
as far as people who want to use it it's
completely tech free so even if you want
to create your own tutorials it's all
done through a website so by filling out
web forms it's a multi-stage process it
gave students the opportunity to design
their own elearning material which they
could use to teach other students we
provide feedback on how a question made
it could be better written or how good
the question is or if it's similar to
another question we've got a group of
junior reviewers who are effectively
sort of senior medical students who
check whether it really looks like a
decent assessment and then if they feel
that that's correct then we can pass it
on to senior reviewers who are doctors
in certain specialty areas we really
want it to be a peer reviewed source
rather than something where anyone can
publish
when we're actually trying to write the
tutorials we find it taking far longer
than we ever envisaged to explain stuff
to other students you just have to have
that grasp of the subject that you you
don't normally develop by reading a
textbook you rarely have going into
exams a lot of material is created on
things that students struggled with in
the past and say that tutorial actually
slotted him nicely into the medical
curriculum and it was created by student
which was all the better the feedback
we've had is really positive people are
really interested in creating content
that we've spoken to both doctors and
medical students seem really keen to get
involved
the experience has been long it's been
hard we've had to remain really
disciplined the time to actually keep
things going but it's been absolutely
brilliant so what we hope Steve by next
year have sort of 30 40 students
creating their own material having
feedback on their tutorials and students
identifying gaps in each other's
knowledge I think if we can get everyone
involved everyone submitting and testing
themselves and really can create this
community spirit on the site hopefully
it will just be really rewarding for
everyone involved
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