Postgraduates majoring in clinical medicine attend a SPOC class, or Small Private Online Course, delivered by a teacher at the Nanjing Medical University. [Photo/jsenews.cn]

In fact, according to a survey done among 452 clinical medical students, 72 percent of them were willing to try the new online education mode, and nearly 70 percent claimed to have improved in their learning efficiency and self-learning abilities after SPOC classes. 

Good news keeps springing out. At a forum that gathered senior teachers from over 40 medical colleges on Nov 4, the experienced educators agreed to establish an intercollegiate union and co-develop SPOC courses across the country. 

At present, the union has gathered 45 Chinese leading medical institutes from cities including Nanjing, Tianjin, Beijing, Harbin, Xi’an, Chongqing and Shenyang. 

“We encourage more and more colleges to join the group. Our classes will be included in doctoral programs in the future, and all English-delivered classes will also be available soon,” said Zhou Jianwei, chief expert of the union. 

Maybe Spock from Star Trek has realized the benefits of combining online teaching with classroom interaction, as he already said decades ago: 

“Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them.”