Cross-institution online problem based learning in Chinese Medicine Education

New education technology drives the pedagogical changes nowadays. Teaching and learning collaborations can now be extended beyond institutional boundaries. This study reports a new attempt of cross-institution collaboration in co-teaching a Chinese Medicine course. A Cross-institution Online Problem-based Learning (COPBL) is designed and implemented by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (CDUTCM). There are 25 students from HKU and 24 students from CDUTCM who have participated in the COPBL. It is a supplementary component to courses and a seven-step approach has been adopted. Students work individually and collaboratively with floating-facilitators. The classes are blended with face-to-face and online components. As an initial step to understand the effectiveness of COPBL, this study specifically focuses on students’ use of the discussion forum, which is a key online component in COPBL. There are 91.8% of students who have viewed the discussion forum in total, 839 of view counts in all discussion forums. There are 63 replies recorded in all of the discussion forums. The replies could be identified into following categories, comments (33%), comments and questions (27%), responses (37%), and others (3%).This study has demonstrated that problem-based learning can be conducted in a blended form with traditional classroom teaching methods and well-designed online components. The COPBL offers new possibilities in redesigning pedagogy with new education technology. It could bring our education into a new era surrounded with new learning experiences.postprin