1. Analysis of Chinese dental professional courses
The model of professional education of stomatology in China was decided in 1954 when the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health jointly held the National Higher Medical Education Conference. It was based on the background of general medicine, firstly "medical students" and then "stomatological students". At present, the curriculum of stomatology majors in Chinese universities basically continues this model. After the third-year undergraduates formally enter the dental professional course, they are faced with three years of "theory-experiment-practice" interlocking learning. According to the college's training program for undergraduates, the three-year theoretical class has 468 hours (15%), and the follow-up experiments and internships are up to 652 hours (21%) and 1920 hours (64%). And, after the theoretical course ends, the clinical internship begins immediately, and there is no summer vacation to buffer. Therefore, it is necessary to implement perfect online theoretical teaching during the COVID-19. Based on this opportunity, this study analyzes and discusses the online and offline teaching methods of theoretical teaching in stomatology.
2. Discussion on online education methods
With the development of online education today, a variety of online learning models have been formed, such as massive online open course (MOOC) and other massive course sharing or trading platforms, which have also attracted the attention of medical educators. Pei and other scholars[1] conducted a meta-analysis of the literature in 2000–2017, systematically reviewed 3700 articles, selected 16 articles that met the research standards, and discussed the degree of knowledge and skills mastered by online and offline learning for medical undergraduates. Compared with offline learning, online learning has advantages in promoting the knowledge and skills of medical undergraduates and is a feasible method. Coincidentally, scholars such as Tang[2] reviewed 45 literature chapters, and also believed that for medical undergraduates, the integration of online courses into medical education has a high degree of acceptance and good learning results.
Early online education generally adopts the recording and broadcasting class model. This one-way video courseware cannot form a complete learning loop. There are problems such as the absence of student attendance, the teacher's self-talk, and the lack of teacher-student interaction. It is difficult to maintain the interactions between teachers and students and the attention of the students. Compared with recording and broadcasting, live teaching is more interactive, can create a learning atmosphere, and can solve the problem of mandatory learning to a certain extent[3]. The combination of live broadcast technology and online education has a stronger appeal and freshness for the Internet generation, and can more flexibly compensate for the lack of online learning interaction[4]. This brings opportunities for the online education industry, and live broadcast education has gradually begun to rise.
It is worth mentioning that some scholars have studied the classification of interactive problem design of teachers online, using the four dimensions of the structure, aggregation, complexity and cognitive level as the problem classification criteria, and 131 interactive problem designs as the research objects, and analyze the effectiveness of the problem from two perspectives of learner participation and goal achievement. It is found that the interactive problem design of teachers online shows the characteristics of simple and low cognitive level, the overall level of teacher problem design effectiveness is not high, the quantity and quality of the interactive interaction of participants are low. This problem is particularly evident in the first live broadcast class [5]. The previous research showed that questions at higher-order levels has the potential to guide trainees into progressively complex thinking and decision making [6]. Therefore, live broadcast teachers also need to train and improve teaching skills, learn live broadcast teaching strategies, such as effectively embedding problems in the context, promoting task-driven self-regulated learning, group cooperative learning based on peer evaluation, providing suitable learning supports, and promoting thinking expansion through cooperative debate, etc. [7].
3. The significance of online education for medical education
This study found that under the premise of fully conducting online education analysis, teacher-student research and platform inspection, the convenience and openness of the network platform can be used to more effectively supervise and improve teaching quality. But it is not possible to blindly put online education too high. From the survey results of teachers and students, it can be seen that the traditional face-to-face education is irreplaceable for medical courses, which was consistent with a recent study[8]. The online live classes in this epidemic have increased the understanding and acceptance of online education by teachers and students, and inspired the teaching reform ideas. More teachers and students have accepted this teaching model of online and offline integration. Reform has played a positive role in promoting. The true knowledge gained in this kind of practice is helpful for teachers to study the basic laws of scientific cognition, and to actively think and explore teaching methods that are more suitable for themselves and their majors, and therefore more enlightening. We believe that the future education model will better meet the needs of teachers and students and create a new era of medical education.