Purpose
Medical, dental and allied healthcare students typically experience challenges with learning and mastering complicated concepts in clinical or biomedical subjects. Mind Maps (MM) are becoming established as an effective pedagogical tool using graphics and words to effectively learn and master interconnected concepts involving multiple ordinal branches. The advent of digital learning platforms has provided opportunities to improve upon static mind maps. This abstract describes our conceptualization and development of PharmacoMaps, an interactive MM-based eBook resource for mastering pharmacology topics for students.
Methods
Within the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, faculty at the department of Pharmacology teach both fundamental as well as systems-based and applied pharmacology to medical, dental, nursing, pharmacy and life science students. Several faculty have begun producing MM to accompany their lecture notes and have received positive feedback from students. Here, we build upon these MM by providing step-by-step instructions on using advanced linking features of software such as Adobe Acrobat to create PharmacoMaps, an interactive eBook-based resource which links specific MM nodes back to lecture notes, or for more in-depth learning by linking onto explanatory videos, figures, tables and quizzes.
Results
In the pilot phase, we have produced interactive eBooks based on three separate topics to be implemented in various clinical cohorts in AY2024. The step-by-step instructions were easily followed even by non technology-savvy faculty. The successful implementation of the pilot phase provides impetus to promote the creation of MM-based interactive eBooks to other pharmacological topics as well as related biomedical disciplines.
Conclusion
The widespread use of digital tools in medical education has enabled the transformation of static, paper-based learning tools into interactive, multimedia, digital resources. The creation of MM-based interactive eBooks provides additional learning tools which cater to a range of learning styles.