The Research On The Use Of Computer Technology To Reform The Learning Environment Of Traditional Medical PBL

In Learning to Be: The World of Education Today and Tomorrow, E. Faure pointedout that education is not confined to the fixed contents which are forced to receive,but regarded as a progression of human development. People not only have to learnhow to express themselves, how to communicate with others, and how to explore theworld through various experiences, but also should they learn how to perfectthemselves continuously from the beginning to the end. Meanwhile, the report fromThe International Commission on Education for 21st Century-Learning: TheTreasure Within introduced four prop concepts: learning to know, learning to do,learning to live together, and learning to be. The arrangement for education of21st century should be incorporated with these concepts. PBL is one of the effectiveways of teaching reform.While the traditional medical PBL modified the old teaching method with whichclassroom teaching was disjointed from the practical application-teaching wastedious; the knowledge transmission was localized on the mechanic imitation;students tended to learn to answer rather than learn to use, thus, the studentswere taught with the defects of high score and low competence and lack of the abilityof innovation. However, in the course of teaching, the traditional medical PBLwould be inevitably shocked by the side effect of Chinese traditional culture andnational customs and became a medical PBL with Chinese characteristics, as theteaching was still in the form of teacher-fronted mode. With the enlargedenrollment of university students in China, various conflicts arose in the respectsas more students, less teachers, limited classrooms and library, teaching resourceshortage, and money lacking, which caused the formation of "a big class" withteacher-fronted situation in the course of PBL implementation. The exchangesbetween students and teachers were still concentrated in the classroom.The paper suggests using computer technology to reform learning environmentof traditional medical PBL, aiming to establish a new setting to help students learn in a combination of self-access, exploitation, and co-operation. In thisway, apart from computer and multi-media technology, computer simulation/virtualtechnology has been added to create some situations of rare and difficult diseasesand the virtual clinical skill center has been set up for students to performrepetitive, cheap, harmless, and hurtles simulations. And means of web virtuallearning community, web virtual PBL classroom are employed to establish theplatform for teaching, exchange, and collaboration.It's just a start to reform learning environment of traditional medical PBLthrough computer technology. There, still, are lots of problems needed to studyfurther, as the effect and validity of computer-technology-based medical PBLlearning environment, the device and exploitation of related learning software,and so on.