Twelve Tips for Transitioning Your Didactic Curriculum to the Online Platform in the Current COVID-19 Era and Beyond (Preprint)
BACKGROUND The novel coronavirus was first discovered in China, and it is now known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease caused by the virus is called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The symptoms of COVID-19 include, but are not limited to, fever, dry cough, myalgia, and dyspnea. Social distancing, isolation and quarantine have become critical to community mitigation of viral spread. And as a result, the use of video conferencing for work, meetings, and gatherings has become central to maintaining social distancing while continuing to accomplish tasks. OBJECTIVE To develop an alternative meeting space for medical education teaching sessions. METHODS 12-tips developed for transitioning your didactic curriculum to an online platform RESULTS Tip 1: Engage key stakeholders; Tip 2: Adapt your curricular content to an online platform; Tip 3: Select a Learning Management System (LMS); Tip 4: Organize content in the LMS; Tip 5: Select an online meeting platform; Tip 6: Create a virtual class schedule; Tip 7: Orient faculty and learners to virtual teaching/learning; Tip 8: Prepare for the teaching sessions; Tip 9: Navigate a virtual teaching session; Tip 10: Integrate audio and video into the teaching sessions; Tip 11: Encourage learner engagement virtually; Tip 12: Obtain feedback on your online sessions. CONCLUSIONS Video conferencing has emerged as a superior method to achieve our goal of medical education while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have found the Zoom meeting platform to be incredibly easy to use and highly effective. In this era of social distancing and staying six feet apart, virtual teaching sessions are critical. These twelve tips will help you adapt your teaching format to our new normal in graduate and undergraduate medical education. CLINICALTRIAL N/A