Digital teaching after the pandemic – enriching diversity of teaching methods and freedom for inclination-oriented learning?

Abstract

Regardless of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, digital teaching and examination formats should be used regularly and sustainably in medical curricula to an appropriate extent and according to site-specific possibilities. As a joint position paper of MFT and GMA states [1]: “The challenge here is to use the new digital formats as an important and curricularly fully creditable supplement to the established face-to-face teaching formats in order to support self-directed learning and the development of a knowledge base and to create free space for the essential application and discussion of what has been learned in the face-to-face teaching”. The personal and socially experiential dimension of learning, especially in the applicationand patient-oriented formats of medical education, remain pandemic presence-independent. “However, the potentials for effective and efficient further development of digital teaching-learning methods have become clear through the pandemic-related experiences and require further critical and sustained analysis. Forms of digital teaching range from asynchronous formats to synchronous interactive formats to complex small group formats of collaborative learning. The advantage of asynchronous formats is the possibility of self-directed learning, which allows for different learning paces, repeated access and repetition, and individual focus based on knowledge gaps. Synchronous formats allow direct exchange between instructors and students in interactive learning phases, clarification of open questions and comprehension problems, and collaborative learning among students. They offer an alternative to parts of faceto-face teaching and can thus be a profitable supplement to previous face-to-face teachingmethods. Great potential of digital formats is that students are well prepared for the necessary face-to-face teaching, for simulation-based teaching formats and for training in a clinical context.” [1] Blended learning concepts with well-coordinated digital offerings provide an important opportunity at medical schools for more individualized competency-based training in line with the current National CompetencyBased Learning Objectives Catalog 2.0 (see [http:// www.nklm.de]). They also allow flexible and organizationally low-threshold linking of courses for participants from different training and study programs to promote interprofessional teaching. In addition, they offer flexible options for disadvantage compensation in favor of impaired students. As a matter of principle, blended learning should be offered to students from all faculties in an appropriate quality and should be firmly anchored in the curricula. This also opens up new implementation possibilities for inclination-oriented courses on the part of the teachers, which can be offered across semesters within the framework of elective curricula with little organizational effort, independently of the specifications of the NKLM (“Teach whatever you want!”). This can counteract the fears of excessive schooling due to excessive specifications through learning objective catalogs such as the NKLM [2]. There still is a lot of work to do: “At the medical faculties, a sustainable infrastructure for digital teaching is required that is seamlessly linked to the IT infrastructure of the universities, university hospitals and academic teaching hospitals. This requires a coordinated and transparent procedure between these two IT worlds for the release of software solutions in accordance with data protection and usage laws. Lecturers should be able to rely on the usability of classic tools of digital teaching at both university and clinical computer workstations, such as campus management and learning management systems, video conferencing systems, and examination and evaluation environments in particular. Appropriate hardware and software requirements are to be created at designated workstations for the development and recording of asynchronously usable digital teaching and learning materials. Teachers should be able to prepare and process their media without technical hurdles, especially with the help of media servers with appropriate capacities.” [1] To this end, well-coordinated software packages and licenses with open source solutions should be strived for