Given a problem in Pharmacology, the students should be able to generate issues, organise relevant issues into learning tasks, seek appropriate information from a variety of sources, analyze critically the information obtained, synthesise the information into a coherent framework, share the information obtained, facilitate the learning of others and assess their own performance on an ongoing basis and help peers in assessing theirs. The Teacher's View Multiple evaluation procedures were incorporated to give students an opportunity to demonstrate their strengths on at least one if not more evaluation tools. The other exercises were designed to explore more tightly the acquisition of a pharmacological knowledge base. The Teacher's View Amongst the central tenets of this approach is the belief that process and content are inextricably linked, that what is learned stems closely from how it is learned. Promotion of active learning by this process requires that students take responsibility for their own learning and are able to seek, synthesise and integrate information as well as communicate it effectively to their fellow students.
Formative evaluation becomes a crucial component of such a programme.
In the conventional small group format, time is set apart for an evaluation of the tutorial process at the end of each tutorial. The amount of time spent is variable depending on the attitudes of the tutor and the students. Often this process is short-circuited since few written notes are kept. To formalise this process, a specific form was developed. This was initially developed with student input from a previous class.