Co-teaching Model Promotes True Integration for Integrated Curriculum of Urology

Abstract

Background Currently, the integrated curriculum of urology is still on the road of complete integration. Co-teaching, an existing concept in education, however, may be used to promote the integration of urology. Therefore, the present study was designed to explore the effect of co-teaching method compare with the traditional teaching method.Methods Co-teaching and traditional teaching in the topics hematuria and acute kidney injure (AKI) were prepared and validated. 98 undergraduate medical students of Tongji University were randomly assigned to groups A and B. Group A was taught hematuria by Co-teaching (CT) and AKI by traditional teaching (TT) and Group B was taught hematuria by TT and AKI by CT. A knowledge assessment tool of 20 multiple choice items was administered to assess the pre, post and retention knowledge scores. Change between knowledge scores was analyzed using inferential statistics. One students’ questionnaire and one tutors’ questionnaire were designed and used to investigate the perception on teaching-learning experience.Results Both traditional teaching and co-teaching were significantly effective in increasing the knowledge scores with no significant difference in learning outcomes between these two methods. However, co-teaching showed better knowledge retention compared to conventional teaching. At the same time, the feedback from students’ questionnaire showed co-teaching method better than traditional teaching; otherwise, the feedback from tutors’ questionnaire showed it needs more time and cooperation for the co-teaching. ConclusionsCo-teaching can promote the curriculum to be deeply integrated, achieve comparatively better retention of knowledge and improve the teaching effect as revealed by the findings.