Teaching "Biochemistry with Elements of Chemistry" in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of the presented article is to evaluate the students' perception of the online teaching educational model as a part of the "Biochemistry with Elements of Chemistry" course conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic at the Faculty of Medicine of the Jagiellonian University Medical College. The first part of the article reflects upon the pandemic impact on the transition from the in-person (standard format) to a complete remote learning format. The next part is based on the responses of the students to a questionnaire and presents an analysis of the students' preferences and perceptions regarding synchronous and asynchronous teaching methods. Students answered questions about the advantages and disadvantages of distance learning programs. They indicated the most suitable learning mode in terms of gaining knowledge and enhancing their motivation to learn. They listed factors that facilitated remote learning as well as those which made it difficult and posed a challenge to adjust to the new system, in all types of classes, that is, lectures, seminars, and laboratories. The last part of this paper presents the results of the students' performance in the pandemic-enforced system and compares them with the results from the previous class of students from the past year, when teaching was conducted mainly in the standard format. The conclusions from the given analysis may enable beneficial changes for the "Biochemistry with Elements of Chemistry" course for remote teaching in the future. It may also provide valuable insights for such types of courses conducted at other Universities and promote deliberations to continuously improve learning outcomes.

Does the absence of SARS-CoV-2 specific genes always exclude the infection? How to interpret RT-PCR results?-The scenario of interactive online workshop.

The aim of this online workshop is to familiarize biomedical faculties students with the principle of RT-PCR method. The following assumption is made, students participating in the workshop: are already familiar with the principle of PCR reaction, can distinguish PCR from RT-PCR, know the basic possibilities of using the above techniques. During the online workshop participants are supposed to learn the interpretation of PCR and RT-PCR results and to understand the crucial importance of controlling the reaction conditions. The workshop involves active students' learning, critical analysis of the data, group discussion, brainstorming method, involvement of e-tools such as pool everywhere or e-learning platforms, as well as interpreting the real-life example results that allows putting the topic in the proper future work-related tasks. The final part of the workshop focuses on the analysis of the RT-PCR results performed in order to confirm or exclude the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 genome in potentially infected individuals. The students are expected to see the practical/work-related part of the knowledge gained during the workshop.