LAUSR

We designed an interactive multifaceted pathology e-course using various affordable virtual tools assumed to boost students' learning. It was delivered for first-year undergraduate medical students at Helwan University, Cairo, Egypt, as a part of the multidisciplinary program. Seven lectures and two practicals covered the locomotor system topics (basics of neoplasia, metabolic, inflammatory & neoplastic bone & joint diseases). They spanned 9 weeks (March–May 2021). Unlike normal practice in which our students watch pre-recorded online asynchronous theoretical and practical sessions with practical teaching done on gross and microscopic photos, we enrolled 336 students in an interactive e-course, conducted using the ZoomTM platform. Lectures took place in Virtual Learning Stations (VLSs), during which the instructor divided students into small teams (breakout rooms) and sent them the learning material with tasks. Teams then reunited to present their works before redistributing them again for the next learning chunk with new tasks. Using flipped classroom strategies, students studied the topics in advance, then applied them in class, via Case-Based Learning (FC-CBL) and role plays (RP). In RPs, students guessed the diseases based on their understanding of the pathogenesis. For practical sessions, digital pathology slides and pots of specimens embedded in histopathological report formats were used. Weekly quiz competitions using Kahoot! game-based platform were done for formative assessment. Students created diseasesimplifying e-mind maps and funny memes for PtBL (Project-based Learning) in the new e-course and wrote academic essays about diseases in the traditional teaching strategy. In the course's eighth week, students ranked their satisfaction with the overall course experience on a 5-point Likert scale (0:unsatisfactory/1:satisfactory/2:neutral/3:satisfactory/4:very satisfactory). Students' performance in a unified final theoretical and practical exam of the module was compared, using 26 Multiple Choice Questions and four practical stations.