Teaching Sleep Medicine to a small group online

Group size: 15 students
Teaching type: Classes, workshops, groups and seminars
Division: Medical Sciences
Subject: Sleep Medicine
Tools: Google doc (or SharePoint), Zoom (or Teams)

Delivery

Students pose questions regarding the lectures on a shared document which is open from the start of the module. Each student is required to enter at least one question. Deadline is one week before the seminar. Panel question and answer session (90 mins): as many of the lecturers as possible who have provided the recorded lectures for the module attend. They are sent relevant questions in advance permitting tutors to prepare slides to help illustrate answers. Lead tutor reads out questions. Panel incorporates student input and further questions. Towards the end of the session there is a free-question segment to allow for any further topics to be addressed.

Strengths

It allows students to ask questions in a non-daunting environment via a shared document. For tutors, they can prepare for questions in advance, share relevant information/articles during teaching, and fill in answers on document and share links/relevant information.

Limitations

A prescribed format but permits all students to contribute. The natural flow of questioning can be limited by this approach. But the tutor can group together questions on similar topics to aid with this.