Creating Veterinary Public Health Online Cases by Students for Students.

Online-based processing of case reports is often used and well accepted in veterinary medical education. However, lecturers usually develop cases from their own point of view, without input from students. In order to give students the chance to create online cases for students, an elective course Creative Workshop Case Creation, was held three times between 2017 and 2019 at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin. During this course, students created cases based on animal welfare and epizootics issues through a problem-based blended learning approach. In this approach, students worked on an assigned veterinary public health problem and actively solved it in small groups in class and then used the issue as the basis to create cases for their fellow students. The cases were implemented in interdisciplinary lectures, which are mandatory for every student in semesters six to eight. After taking these classes, fellow students evaluated one of these cases, specifically, on animal welfare and another one on epizootics. Evaluations showed these cases were received well. Moreover, we received excellent feedback from students participating in the elective course, and working with a proactive and motivated group of six students throughout the course was a very productive experience. The course made it possible to create cases that are more accurately tailored to the needs of students. The students' good ideas and preparatory work also saved time in the preparation of cases for lecturers.

Teaching Outbreak Investigations with an Interactive Blended Learning Approach.

Public health is a central but often neglected component of veterinary education. German veterinary public health (VPH) education includes substantial theory-focused lectures, but practical case studies are often missing. To change this, we combined the advantages of case-based teaching and blended learning to teach these topics in a more practical and interactive way. Blended learning describes the combination of online and classroom-based teaching. With it, we created an interdisciplinary module for outbreak investigations and zoonoses, based on the epidemiology, food safety, and microbiology disciplines. We implemented this module within the veterinary curriculum of the seventh semester (in the clinical phase of the studies). In this study, we investigated the acceptance of this interdisciplinary approach and established a framework for the creation of interactive outbreak investigation cases that can serve as a basis for further cases. Over a period of 3 years, we created three interactive online cases and one interactive in-class case and observed the student-reported evaluation of the blended learning concept and self-assessed learning outcomes. Results show that 80% (75-89) of students evaluated the chosen combination of case-based and blended learning for interdisciplinary teaching positively and therefore accepted it well. Additionally, 76% (70-98) of students evaluated their self-assessed learning outcomes positively. Our results suggest that teaching VPH through interdisciplinary cases in a blended learning approach can increase the quality of teaching VPH topics. Moreover, it provides a framework to incorporate realistic interdisciplinary VPH cases into the curriculum.

Students' acceptance of case-based blended learning in mandatory interdisciplinary lectures for clinical medicine and veterinary public health.

BACKGROUND: In German veterinary education interdisciplinary lectures (ILs) are an important and mandatory part of the curriculum as their merging character builds a useful preparation for the future profession as a veterinarian. These lectures should enable students to work on practically-relevant and interdisciplinary cases, which should ideally be defined jointly by lecturers from different disciplines. METHODS: In order to give students the opportunity to work on these cases and at the same time have contact with their lecturers and fellow students, the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, has converted its former in-class ILs (face-to-face delivery format) into a blended learning format. The mandatory lectures comprise 196 curricular hours and are delivered over the course of three semesters within the veterinary curriculum. The new concept was developed over a period of three academic years and extensively evaluated (old-new-comparison) with regard to its acceptance and compliance with national requirements for interdisciplinary teaching. RESULTS: A total of 306 students were asked to evaluate different aspects of the newly implemented format. Overall, more than 79% of the students attending the newly implemented blended learning format responded positively, and the evaluation showed a significant improvement of learning motivation and acceptance when compared to the traditional teaching format. CONCLUSION: The results indicated that blended learning is a suitable option for teaching mandatory ILs in clinical medicine and veterinary public health.

Teaching small animal reproduction via virtual patients.

Virtual patients have become an interesting alternative in medical education. Due to increasing demands regarding theoretical and clinical teaching and to improve an interdisciplinary approach, a new blended learning concept including virtual patients was developed and implemented in the veterinary curriculum of the Freie Universität Berlin. In the presented project, three virtual patients from the field of canine reproduction were developed. They focus on pregnancy diagnosis with suspected luteal insufficiency, pyometra and benign prostatic hyperplasia, respectively. The results of an evaluation by veterinary students of the 7th semester showed a high acceptance of virtual patients in a blended learning reproduction module in the interdisciplinary lectures. Students especially preferred videos, such as video lectures, hands-on videos and animations as well as a glossary for background information, to successfully and autonomously work on a virtual case. The content covered by the new modules that were developed in the context of this project is part of a spiral curriculum; they will be revised and enhanced during the clinical year.