Comparison of the blended teachinging of massive open online courses and flipped classroom versus the traditional teaching pattern for Medical Microbiology

Abstract:

In the “student-centered” teaching reform, the main issues of concern are student satisfaction and student performance. The massive open online courses (MOOC) of Medical Microbiology of Beihua University is a high-quality online course in Jilin province. In order to fulfill the advantages of MOOC and reflect the “student-centered” teaching philosophy better, the Department of Medical Microbiology has adopted the blended teaching format of flipped classroom (FC) based on MOOC to carry out a classroom teaching reform. For the first time, the teaching team compared in detail the teaching effect of the blended teaching model of MOOC&FC with the traditional teaching model in Medical Microbiology and conducted a survey on the students’ satisfaction with the blended teaching reform. Independent sample t-test results of the experimental group and the traditional group showed that the blended MOOC&FC teaching method did not affect students’ exam scores or the students’ performance under the two teaching models, and the effectiveness of the two teaching patterns was the same. The statistical results showed that the capability of the experimental group of students to analyze and solve problems improved significantly. The survey feedback indicates that students are more content with the improvement of self-learning ability and teamwork awareness in the MOOC&FC blended teaching, and prefer the flexibility and initiative of MOOC&FC course format.

Key words:Medical Microbiology, massive open online courses, flipped classroom, blended teaching, traditional teaching, comparison