An Integrated Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection Session: Utilizing an Online Collaborative Platform in a Synchronous Classroom Setting

INTRODUCTION: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major public health concern worldwide. It is important to provide high-quality instructional sessions to students about the pathogenesis and risk factors of TB, as medical students are likely to encounter TB infections in clinical practice. METHODS: We describe an interactive instructional session integrating immunology and microbiology concepts of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection that was presented to first-year medical students in their respiratory organ systems course. The session included a pretest primer followed by a brief review of mucosal immunity with an emphasis on the respiratory system. Using an online collaborative application, learners created a study guide on a shared spreadsheet while faculty provided real-time feedback. Following the cloud-based portion, faculty presented interactive lectures using student-created content. The session concluded with a formative posttest. We evaluated the session with responses to an optional student survey. RESULTS: One hundred fourteen students (37% male and 63% female) completed the survey across 4 years from 2016 to 2019. The session received high student satisfaction ratings across five questions, with 83% of students indicating they were slightly satisfied to strongly satisfied. The students had an absolute increase in their scores of 31% on the posttest as compared to the pretest mean (p < .001). DISCUSSION: We developed an interactive TB instructional session that integrates disciplines, contains real-time instructor feedback, and promotes teamwork in a large class setting. The session allows medical students to learn content and create their own study guide using online collaboration technology.