E-learning at Porto Faculty of Medicine. A case study for the subject 'Introduction to Medicine'

The main objective of the Introduction to Medicine (IM) subject of the first year of the Medical Course at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto is to provide students with a first contact with the areas of Biostatistics, Medical Informatics, Bioethics and the History of Medicine in the belief that they will be better prepared to learn, research, evaluate, share and decide within their practice. This paper presents a case study that describes how the subject IM is organized and how the b-learning tool (Moodle) is used to correct and grade the students' work. From the 239 students registered to attend the Introduction to Medicine subject 12% failed. The average grade among the successful students was 16 (out of 20). In the previous academic year only 2% of the students failed. However, among the successful students, the average grade was inferior (15 out of 20). The e-learning model that was described in this paper was successful because the results show that the students that made use of the Moodle got better grades.