Combining MOOC with Offline Practical Courses to Popularize Medical Knowledge in China

Popularization of medical knowledge is the key to ameliorate the tense physician-patient relationship and cope with the aging of population in China. Here we reported an attempt of medicine popularization by teaching non-medical students basic health care knowledge with blended learning approaches. The geographic information and leaning habit of the students, who took the MOOC course “Gate way to Medicine” as well as those who participated in the blended learning program, were collected either by questionnaire or through the MOOC platform. Our courses got high praise from most of the students. Students in MOOC course and blended learning program both think face-to-face teaching is more important. In conclusion, our results indicated that although MOOC is a very powerful and convenient tool in popularization of medical knowledge, face-to-face training is a necessary supplement for better teaching quality.