No abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has been presenting new challenges for medical schools worldwide. Medical educators are coming-up with creative solutions to address those unprecedented challenges. The purpose of this study is to reflect upon an experience of an online TBL in a Family Medicine Clerkship. Methods: This study relied on a qualitative descriptive design. A phenomenological approach was adapted to capture the perception of students regarding online TBL as part of Family Medicine clerkship, using a survey of open-ended questions. The data were inductively analysed using thematic analysis. Results: The results of the study revealed that the students, overall, reacted positively to the experience. Five themes of text fragments emerged from the analysis: Equivalency of experience, Efficiency and Ease-of-use, Organization, Novelty, and Design. The students also noted some minor difficulties, that they faced at the beginning of their experience, indicating the existence of a learning curve. They also identified a few opportunities for improvement. Discussion: This study demonstrated that combining videoconferencing and lesson delivery software together for TBL enables remote facilitation of the Family Medicine curriculum, and that the students value the experience as such.

No abstract

In our recent work we have proven quantitatively that collaborative learning improves students' knowledge retention and boosts the quality of attained learning outcomes. In this research we investigate the role that the students' gender plays in their engagement during collaborative learning and their learning performance as assessed by the teacher. In the context of the EBTIC developed Collaborative Learning Environment deployed at Khalifa University along the sequence of three group courseworks over one semesters, we intend to explore the differences between the collaborative learning style and quality in female, male and mixed-gender groups. The series of detailed cross-gender learning engagement and performance comparisons indicate that female groups tend to work simultaneously and achieve better results while male group members engage less and work in sequence. As a result female groups exploit the added benefits of collaborative learning more than the male groups. What is striking, however, the members of the mixed-gender groups excel the most, significantly improving their engagement, focus and the quality of groupwork comparing to same-gender groups. We believe this outcome delivers yet another proof of the synergies and efficiencies of interactive learning in a diverse group of students and encourages mixing genders when composing groups for collaborative learning.

The global educational landscape is changing due to the advancement of technologies and services; some have termed it as the "climate change" in education. The students of today engage with the learning environment differently from the students of yesterday. The traditional landscape is often perceived as "formal", "passive", "direct", and "push" learning environment designed largely for the knowledge consumers; and the modern landscape is often perceived as "informal", "active", "collaborative", "social", and "pull" learning environment designed not only for the knowledge consumers but also for the knowledge creators. This paradigm shift in education is imminent and has gathered a lot of interests in the recent years to create and/or adapt the education environment for the 21st century. To facilitate this impending modern landscape, this paper would introduce a new radical construct, termed as self-organized and/or purposely-organized peer-to-peer learning, and its impacts towards both the formal and informal learning environment. An overview of some of the solutions, that have been developed under the holistic intelligent campus (iCampus) initiative, would also be delineated so as to address such aspectual issues and challenges pertaining to the next generation smart learning environment.