The construction of a 'topic tree': a way of familiarizing a teaching staff to problem-oriented learning in a...

At the planning stage of a community-oriented and problem-based learning master's programme in public health it is indispensable to build a network of teachers, experts in specific fields, willing to guide the students in acquiring new competencies and ready to facilitate the experimental learning process. We discuss in this paper the construction and the utilisation of the 'topic tree'. In addition we show how the teaching staff get acquainted with that educational methodology by experimenting with it themselves (prior to the students). About 10 experts, each one a specialist in a given field, have conceptualized their approach in building a topic tree (concept tree); such a tree makes it possible to schematize the topics to be understood in order to solve a given problem and the relationship existing between actions to be undertaken. The experiment, meant to initiate the teaching staff in experimental learning procedures, was appreciated by all the experts, who considered it a creative and stimulating method. It also permitted the construction of a bibliography including key documents concerning each identified priority health problem. We discuss the utility and the relevance of our approach in the perspective of initiating teachers in experiential learning based on problem-solving.