A case-based e-learning model for professional education: Anesthesiology for dental students

This paper presents an instructional design model for a case-based e-leaming environment for teaching decision-making skills in anesthesiology. The anesthetization process is a complex and high-risk task in which critical decisions need to be made in a timely manner during dynamically changing situations. A course in anesthesiology was recently added to the dental school curriculum in South Korea. Instructors in this course are often challenged by the fact that a great amount of information needs to be delivered to the students within a very limited time. Consequently, students are often focusing on memorization of decontextualized information. Most knowledge acquired in this manner seems to remain as inert knowledge that may not be utilized in real world situations. In order to resolve this problem, we designed and are now developing a case-based e-leaming environment in which students are able to build their reasoning and decision-making skills while exploring real video cases, expert reasoning processes, and just-in-time information. This product will be launched in one of the dental schools in South Korea in the fall of 2004.