EXPERIENCES DURING THE ADAPTATION TO THE EUROPEAN HIGHER EDUCATION AREA IN THE PRACTICAL TEACHING OF VETERINARY ANATOMY: BRINGING TOGETHER BOTH TRADITIONAL AND ON-LINE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Traditionally, teaching at the University has been focused on the professor as the speaking person who tells the students all they need to know as they write down their notes. The practical lectures in Veterinary Anatomy arise as the best opportunity to put into practice both the student-based learning (the individual work of the student) and their evaluation throughout the school year.
During the practical lectures in the dissection room the students have the opportunity to work by themselves, however the teacher has been also something more than only “the guide” of the session: the teacher gives instructions and information on how to manage, help the students during the dissections, and the practical session supports on a guide or booklet that we elaborate with texts and images taken from different resources. The students do not need to search for the information so much. However, once the practical sessions are over, they usually need additional revisions, so that the come again to the dissection room to study.
Having these points in mind we have tried to re-design a little the traditional guides that we give to the students during the practical sessions of Veterinary Anatomy. The aim of remodelling our practical booklets was to facilitate and to improve the work of the student at home. We made a small book resembling somehow an atlas with many photographs and short descriptive texts. The images contained in this “atlas” were high-quality photographs taken from the anatomical models that we have previously made. During the practical sessions the students work and learn the structures on these anatomical models. Simultaneously, the teacher can evaluate the student personal work. Once the practical session is over, the students must work at home on the atlas. It contains a part where the student is asked to fill correctly in all the data they have previously learnt during the practical session. Later on, the teacher will check these booklets. Together with this traditional tools we also support our teaching on on-line resources. One of them is the virtual seminary room of the Complutense University of Madrid, through the software Moodle. We have generated different resources: elaboration of files available for the students, news regarding teaching and organization of classes, exams…etc, a forum for the students to exchange information on different topics, and even a wikipedia to elaborate class notes by the students. In order to expand and improve the access to the teaching materials we will be soon ready to publish them on-line by the journal “Reduca”, which is using the open journal system (ojs) a publishing system developed by the Public Knowledge Project.