AN ONLINE COURSE AS STRATEGY TO INTRODUCE FACULTY IN THE USE OF ELECTRONIC PLATFORMS

Diana P. Montemayor-Flores and Nancy E. Fernández-Garza*.  Medicine School, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, 64420, Monterrey, N.L., MEXICO

Purpose

The use of electronic platforms as a learning tool in medicine schools is since several years an every day reality.  Nevertheless its use has not been adopted equally in all educational institutions.  The principal reason of this is the resistance of professors to accept its utility, feeling that professors are being replaced by a computer.  In order to convince faculty that electronic platforms are a useful tool to help students to learn and at the same time their use facilitates the communication between professor and students, an online faculty development course was designed under the name Writing Multiple Choice Questions According to the National Board of Medical Examiners.  The purpose of this course was double:

1. Review the guidelines of the National Board of Medical Examiners to write Multiple Choice Questions.
2. Give professors the opportunity to evaluate the usefulness of an electronic platform as students.

Methods

The activities professors realized as students during the course included: participation in discussion forums, integration of electronic portfolios, and collaborative work.

Results

A survey applied at the end of the course demonstrated that professors were completely satisfied with this new experience and convinced that the use of electronic platforms will be of great utility in their face-to-face courses.

Conclusion

It is not possible to evaluate what is unknown. In this case the fact of living as a student the experience of an online course was fundamental to achieve professor’s acceptance of electronic platforms as an additional tool to facilitate learning.