Successful embedding of virtual lectures in medical psychology education in order to improve teacher-student interactivity and collaboration

Abstract

Teaching medical psychology requires both, a good knowledge of theory but also a lot of practical hands on experience in order to successfully deploy the learned skills to patients. However, the time for classroom lessons is limited, so we had to think about a didactical concept which provides both: on the one hand an efficient and for the students attractive way to transfer the theory and on the other hand more time in the classroom lectures in order to practice skills and improve interactivity and collaboration among students and teachers. Having in mind that we had to provide more room for practical lessons in small groups and to transfer theoretical knowledge and refresher content in a most efficient way, the concept of flipped classroom in combination with blended learning were the most obvious choices. In order to apply the concept of a flipped classroom we performed a series of workshops with the involved teachers and developed with them four different virtual formats in order to make the delivery of the theoretical and refresher content as attractive, effective and interesting as possible. Technically we utilized our lecture recording system in combination with editing and a professional play out for the students. We also performed an accompanying student evaluation in order to get some feedback on the effectiveness of our approach. Last but not least we will share all our experiences gained in this project, which can easily be applied also to other subjects of teaching.