This descriptive study was undertaken amongst the students of Phase 1 MBBS pursuing Anatomy by the end of April 2020; after implementing the flipped class mode of teaching followed by Zoom meeting for doubt clearance; in the first month after lockdown. Necessary permissions have been taken from higher authorities of the institute to conduct this survey. After the start of first phase of lockdown, the faculties of the Department of Anatomy, Institute of Post Graduate Medical Education & Research, Kolkata, West Bengal, India over a Zoom meeting on 24^th March 2020, reached a unanimous decision to carry on academics with the flipped teaching mode using Zoom as the platform for interaction. Enlistment was done with 10 topics of Gross Anatomy domain and 10 slides of Histology. Histology sessions were planned for two days a week and gross Anatomy topics for three days a week. The first session was taken on 27^th March 2020.

Study materials were compiled by the faculties for each gross anatomy sessions covering one particular topic, histology sessions covering two histology slides (total 15 sessions; one session for each gross anatomy topics and five sessions covering two slides for each day). Respective study material was shared with the students in their WhatsApp group as PDF note; three days before the scheduled Zoom class, they were asked to frame their common query list. In the Zoom class, these queries were addressed. As the basic version of Zoom allows only 40 minutes time for 100 participants, so for each topic, the designated faculty was needed to arrange two subsequent meetings to address total 199 students. After continuing the same activity for almost one month, in the first phase of lock down, students’ feedbacks were felt needed.

All 199 students were approached with the pretested questionnaire using 10 questions in Google form to obtain their responses. The Google form has been shared with students’ whatsapp group and they were asked to submit by next four hours. Excluding the incomplete responses, in-total responses of 182 students were finally accepted and tabulated in the excel sheet and analysed accordingly.

Out of total 199 students in the class, 182 students have responded in the given period of time with fully filled up proforma. Total 92% of the students favoured the sharing of study material at least well in advance days before the class session; 6% students desired only sharing of study material without any online interaction. Students mentioned internet connectivity as the major constrain for their participation in online teaching (61%); 22.2% students perceived difficulty in understanding of the discussed topic due to shortage of time available in basic version of Zoom [Table/Fig-1].

On seeking suggestions for improving the Zoom sessions, students came out with replies to have option to join before host in Zoom (83.2%), removing the unwilling distracting participants (42.1%), even opting for using the paid version of Zoom to ascertain better security (73.1%). Only 4.4% students supported present 6 days/week teaching. Majority of the students opined for teaching sessions in 3 to 4 days a week. They expressed their interest to have the recordings of the Zoom meetings (71%). Only one fifth of the students (20.2%) asked for home assignments and 2.2% opined for assessments based upon the teaching calender [Table/Fig-1].

Almost two-third of the students (62.2%) desired asynchronous mode of teaching by uploading lectures in Youtube video. Amongst the rest one-third, they mentioned Google-classroom, Skype portal as the next to think platforms, besides the present Zoom based flipped class plan [Table/Fig-1].

Total 93.5% students perceived the study material helpful to them. Similarly, four students out of each five (79.11%) found the Zoom sessions helpful to grasp the topic. To note, approximately 77% students expressed no interest to continue the online teaching after the resumption of regular college and almost 40% of the students could not keep themselves up-to-date along with the teaching in flipped class sessions taken in online mode [Table/Fig-2].

[Table/Fig-2]:

Distribution of students depending upon their responses on different aspects of the flipped class sessions taken in zoom (N=182).

Students’ opinions have thrown light on different aspects of this teaching activity. They expressed willingness for three to four days class in a week instead of departmental policy for six classes per week. Though, better lesson planning and trimming of topic can be done to make it appropriate for the 40 minutes discussion; but their desire to allow the participants before joining host goes against the Government advisory of safe Zoom practice [5]. Option for using the paid version of Zoom depends upon the decision of the higher authorities, and personal choice of the faculties; so could not be incorporated as a whole. Considering the probability of ghost participants and to run the session smoothly, the department directed the students to mention their roll numbers, names with the video, so that the faculty could see everyone’s face.

Except a small amount of students, almost all others (approx 80%) were not in favour of continuing the online mode of teaching in post lockdown era; which might be due to their bitter experience with disturbed net connection, potential threats for security in Zoom; for which they were ever scared. The honest confession of the students to fail to keep up with class might be due to non-availability of books with them.

Online teaching in medical education is not a new concept and gradually spreading with the dominance of internet everywhere. The role of e-learning in medical education was found to be joyful to the students and propagated them towards self-directed learning [6].

Limited inadequate preparation phase, infrastructural weakness and ill expertise of the participants have been found by Doherty OD et al., as constrains in online teaching programme [7]. Study by Schimming LM in 2008 explored that the online teaching has proven to be effective after proper sensitisation and training for handling online platforms; which were not possible to conduct in scenario of present study [8].

In this scenario, when lockdown started, neither all the faculties, nor all the students were sensitised to the online teaching, using Zoom or other platforms etc. So department needed to start the online teaching with a trial version of the flipped class mode and followed by interaction in Zoom. Feedbacks from the students were felt essential for future corrective measures.

Even at school level, in 2011, Biag AM conducted a randomised trial of introducing the Online learning in Physics for a batch of Class X students at school in Aurangabad, India; where online teaching was found more effective than the traditional classroom teaching in terms of academic achievement [9].

Brurke BL and Hall RW published the probable ways of using the telemedicine in education, consultation, practice and research in the domain of Pediatric Medicine [10].

Review research work published in 2019; reflected the widespread use of telemedicine in preclinical teaching in undergraduates medical education, in atleast 70 institutions throughout the USA [11]. Those mainly emphasised and moduled with cases integrating with ethics, clinical correlations etc.

This study reflects students’ feedback in one particular institution. Moreover, the free version of Google-form does not allow long explicit questionnaire to include. This gives scope to carry feedback in all other institutions of the state regarding the online teaching experience in this lockdown era, using more structured schedule.

So, in almost all existing research works on online teaching in medical education, it was seen to be effective and helpful to the students; whereas in contrary to this study, a broad section of students wished not to continue online teaching in post-lockdown era. This might be due to lack of proper planning, making of teaching-modules, supporting infrastructures (like uninterrupted internets etc.,).