Exploration of "Online + Offline" Blended Teaching Mode in Molecular Biology Experiment Under the Background of COVID-19

Abstract

Backgrounds: The outbreak of coronavirus has had a serious impact on the economy, life and education of virtually all countries around the world. In China, the pandemic continues to pose a great challenge to the traditional in-person education model of schools. Educators in China are facing the agonizing decision of whether to resume in-person instruction while there’s still no effective cure for the new coronavirus. Therefore, in order to ensure the quality of teaching and learning during the period of special time, we explore the "online + offline" blended teaching mode. Methods: Four hundred medical undergraduates from Dalian Medical University in China took part in a simulated teaching model to improve their learning ability of innovation and exploration. Taking molecular biology experiment - cell apoptosis as an example, we experimented with the blending of "online + offline " teaching mode and evaluated the learning outcome under this mode from the perspectives of experiment operation, report writing and group cooperation.Results: Over 95% of them totally agree with this teaching mode and expect to have it applied to other subjects, while less than 10% of the students have the opinion that the traditional teaching mode is better. The result of the innovation project competition also shows that the students trained under this teaching mode perform better than those under the traditional teaching mode in both objective questions and answers and experimental operation.Conclusions: Adoption of this "online + offline" blended teaching mode is effective and provides a new perspective to solve the problems encountered by medical students when they reach a higher level of development. In the process of carrying out this teaching mode, the cultivation of students' independent learning and innovative exploration ability were emphasized. Furthermore, it also helps students to lay a solid foundation for their future study and career development.