Online teaching of Precision Cancer Medicine

Group size: 30 students
Teaching type: Online course
Division: Medical Science
Subject: Precision Cancer Medicine
Tools: Canvas and Panopto

Delivery

Instead of delivering a traditional 50 minute lecture, lecture plans are split into five shorter parts of 10 minutes. These are videoed on a laptop and uploaded into Canvas via Panopto. Students are issued with gapped notes to encourage them to follow the lecture and fill in missing information. Between lectures, multiple choice quizzes have been placed to check comprehension and aid memory retention.

Strengths

Lectures broken into shorter chunks enable complex information to be delivered in a more simplified way. Gapped texts mean that students are required to fill in notes, which aids memory retention whilst also providing a model template of how to take notes effectively. Multiple choice quizzes between information means students have more time to process and assimilate information These formative quizzes also give lecturers an insight into where students may be having problems comprehending information and so lead to the adaptation of future materials.

Limitations

As the delivery method is online there is no lecturer on hand to answer questions. This has led to the creation of a set interactive hours in which academics are available to field questions at prearranged times.