Analysis of microbiology online teaching in quarantine conditions

Abstract

Teaching microbiology, virology, and immunology subject in a medical school has traditionally been conducted without the use of online technologies. Consequently, the changes in the way stakeholders interact need to be analyzed. The purpose of the article is an analysis of the experience that was performed on how the course of microbiology, virology, and immunology was taught online in coronavirus quarantine conditions of 2020. Authors have determined the main problems in achieving by higher education seekers the proper level of theoretical knowledge, some of the practical skills and abilities that have arisen because of the change in the form of practical classes and lectures. The positive aspects of this unpredictable experiment were noted in the way of teaching the discipline. This subject involves higher education seekers gaining a significant amount of sensory and motor skills. Moreover, the subject has a large fragment of theoretical knowledge, which consists of empirical data of the infectious diseases pathogens properties, methods of their study for microbiological diagnosis; the structure of pathogens, which is necessary for understanding the directions of etiotropic therapy of infectious diseases; biological and antigenic properties to assess the possibilities of specific prevention and treatment of diseases; the resistance of pathogens to external factors in order to understand the peculiarities of the epidemiology of each disease and the possibilities of its specific prevention. Higher education seekers must also learn the structure of the human immune system, to study the mechanisms of its functioning. Finally, a complex of theoretical knowledge, practical skills, and abilities should be built. These achievements were analyzed in this article to assess the prospects for modernization of the educational process in the subject. The situation was problematic with the teaching of this subject online in quarantine. But the benefits are that it was at the same time a discovery in the use of new digital technologies accumulated by civilization in the educational process in such traditionally classical areas of education as teaching microbiology, virology, and immunology course in medical higher educational institutions.