gms | German Medical Science

Gemeinsame Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung (GMA), des Arbeitskreises zur Weiterentwicklung der Lehre in der Zahnmedizin (AKWLZ) und der Chirurgischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft Lehre (CAL)

25.09. - 28.09.2019, Frankfurt am Main

Integration of virtual lectures in medical psychology teaching – conceptualization and first evaluation

Meeting Abstract

  • Franziska Matzer - Medizinische Universität Graz, Univ.-Klinik für Medizinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie, Graz, Österreich
  • presenting/speaker Christian Vajda - Medizinische Universität Graz, Univ.-Klinik für Medizinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie, Graz, Österreich
  • Herwig Rehatschek - Medizinische Universität Graz, Virtueller Medizinischer Campus, Büro der Vizerektorin für Studium und Lehre, Graz, Österreich
  • Christian Fazekas - Medizinische Universität Graz, Univ.-Klinik für Medizinische Psychologie und Psychotherapie, Graz, Österreich

Gemeinsame Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung (GMA), des Arbeitskreises zur Weiterentwicklung der Lehre in der Zahnmedizin (AKWLZ) und der Chirurgischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft Lehre (CAL). Frankfurt am Main, 25.-28.09.2019. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2019. DocV9-04

doi: 10.3205/19gma068, urn:nbn:de:0183-19gma0684

Published: September 20, 2019

© 2019 Matzer et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

Introduction: At the Medical University of Graz teaching medical psychology is addressed, inter alia, in a module called “Human Psyche” which students attend during their 5th year of study. It comprises fundamentals and clinical implications of psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy. In addition to a profound theoretical introduction to the field, successful teaching in this complex subject matter needs a high percentage of classroom lectures in small groups in order to discuss und integrate knowledge and gain relevant personal experience [1]. Given limited teaching resources and aiming at high teaching quality poses a challenge on the didactical concept. Therefore, we planned to develop a concept of combining virtual and classroom teaching that should, first, enable students to learn the theory in an attractive and individual way and, second, allow having enough time for classroom teaching in small groups in order to improve interactivity, understanding and self-experience.

Material and methods: A series of workshops involving teachers of the Department of Medical Psychology and the team of the Virtual Medical Campus were held in order to develop a didactical concept of combining virtual lectures and classroom teaching in the most attractive and effective way.

Furthermore, a short survey amongst students was implemented in order to assess satisfaction with the virtual teaching format and receive specific feedback and recommendations for improvement.

Results: As a result of the development process we implemented parts of the theory lectures as virtual offline courses that can be consumed by students from any place where an Internet connection is available including mobile devices. These theory lectures are presented in a two-video approach (video one contains the speaker(s), video two contains the slides or whatever is shown to the students); in addition we implemented a small-video-chunks approach. These formats are streamed in two different levels of quality and can be visualized with an innovative player, which allows different layouts and the manipulation of the voice speed. Furthermore, we embedded a virtual seminar in between of two classroom seminars. This included a short group work and was supported by an additional virtual format using an animated cartoon. All virtual courses were combined with online tests for self-reflection utilizing a fully automatic virtual lesson system [2] to allow students to test their gained knowledge.

First results of the survey among 23 students showed good satisfaction with the combined concept, its didactics and practical implementation, as 89% of obtained feedback was positive.

Conclusions: Despite limited teaching resources, the applied mixed methods approach of virtual and classroom lectures can be applied with a high proportion of classroom teaching in small groups. In the first year of implementation this approach has gained high acceptance and appreciation among students.


References

1.
Jones RW. Learning and teaching in small groups: characteristics, benefits, problems and approaches. Anaesth Intensive Care. 2007;35(4):587-592.
2.
Rehatschek H, Hruska A. Fully Automated Virtual Lessons in Medical Education. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL); 2013 Sep 25-27; Kazan, Russion Federation; 2013. IEEE Catalog Number: CFP1323R-ART.