The usability of WeChat as a mobile and interactive medium in student‐centered medical teaching

Abstract

Biochemistry and cellular biology courses for medical students at Tongji University include the assessment that provides students with feedback to enhance their learning, which is a type of formative assessment. However, frequent instant feedback and guidance for students is often absent or inconsistently included in the teaching process. WeChat, the most popular Chinese social media, was introduced in biochemistry and cellular biology course. A WeChat official account (OA) was set up as an instant interactive platform. Over a period of two semesters, OA sent 73 push notifications. The components included course notices, preclass thought questions, after-class study materials, answer questions and feedback, simulation exercises, teacher-student interaction, and research progress relevant to the course. WeChat OA served as an active-learning teaching tool, provided more frequent feedback and guidance to students, and facilitated better student-centered communication in the teaching process. Using the WeChat OA in medical teaching emphasized interactive, interoperable, effective, engaging, adaptable, and more participatory teaching styles. As a new platform, WeChat OA was free, Internet-reliant, and easily managed. Using this new medium as a communication tool accelerated further advancement of instant feedback and improvement in teaching activities. Notifications and interactive feedback via the mobile social medium WeChat OA anytime and anywhere facilitated a student-centered teaching mode. Use of WeChat OA significantly increased the proportion of students interactively participating and resulted in a high degree of student satisfaction. © 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(5):421-425, 2017.

WeChat: An applicable and flexible social app software for mobile teaching

“…The open and compatibility in menu establishment and third party app connection enables diverse and personalized teaching in accordance with the course property. The WOA has already used in medical course teaching and health education , and has been proved to be a better active‐learning tool that is student‐centered and easily managed. Over the 2 years of running, our WOA (NCUbiochem) has sent 169 push‐notifications, uploaded and updated the teaching materials, videos, students’ presentations, testing questions, and songs of biochemistry, all these attracted frequent visits and feedbacks.…”

Cell phone-based online biochemistry and molecular biology medical education curriculum

“…[9] Apart from providing a free chat application, WeChat’s large-scale network platform hosts a vast amount of user-generated data, including texts, voice calls, videos, and images. Enabled by its immediate communication and source sharing, WeChat offers a convenient medium for delivery of education.…”

Application of Scientific Papers in Experimental Teaching of Pathophysiology-The effect of scientific papers on the experimental teaching

“…Third, the experimental results of the review to the teacher review mainly, can be combined with science paper competition, improve the enthusiasm of students. In the future research, we will also try to explore the application of electronic teaching methods in undergraduate education, such as WeChat [5], Rain classroom and so on.…”