VIRTUAL CAMPUS: AN ON-LINE TOOL FOR CONTINUAL EVALUATION IN TOXICOLOGY

The Bologna Declaration states the need for changes in the methodology of teaching, promoting as an alternative to lectures using new information and communication technologies (ICT). The use of ICT in education can easily develop key aspects of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), such as transparency and quality in learning, global assessment of student work and finally and perhaps most important, student autonomy. Thus, the teacher starts to act as a guide for students to facilitate their use of resources and tools they need to explore and develop new knowledge and skills among which are the new information technologies. So the teacher of today must become involved in the design and development of new content and distribution process, including virtual teaching platforms.

Studies by Felder and Silverman (1988) on retention rates and compression of content students receive information through various channels, and interact with the teacher in real time, showing that students retain 10% of what is read, 30% of what is seen, 50% of what is seen and heard, 70% of what is said or written and 90% of what is done. It is therefore very important to the implementation of systems to increase student participation to secure long-term knowledge.

Education reform has as one of its tops continuous assessment of students in all grades. The project aims are to provide a mechanism for continuous assessment in toxicology courses facilitating the evaluation of specific competencies and encourage student interest in this subject. The methodology was to post every week in the virtual campus an issue which included the main contents of the chapter and also proposed exercises to encourage regular and continuous work. Upon completion of the topic published in the virtual campus self-assessment test had to be done. To carry out the assessment tests through the virtual platforms there are tools that allow obtaining a sequence of random questions that are different for each student which allows control over the individual student accomplishment.

With the design of self-testing in the virtual campus we attempted to provide a framework for the participation, motivation and improved performance of students in their learning process.