Blended Learning Design

For the BIL sessions, documents containing the weekly learning outcomes and learning resources were uploaded onto the Blackboard learning management system, and students were given an introductory lecture on the topic and an overview of blended learning. BIL sessions comprised multiple online interactive videos (12–15 min each with a total time of 60–80 min) with built-in questions to emphasise the underlying basic and clinical science concepts and their relevance. The videos contained clinical case presentations, images, digital microscopy slides and laboratory reports and were made available both via Blackboard learning management system and Yammer social network. Embedded video questions tested students' knowledge about the diagnosis and physiology behind the signs and symptoms and laboratory reports. At the end of the BIL sessions, a 1-h synthesising session, which involved an integrated lecture-based review of the learning activities was provided to the students with a question/answer and discussion time. Another quiz was administered to the students at the end of the BIL teaching sessions.