Problem-based seminars as a means of increasing the efficiency of distance learning in education

The urgent transition of higher education to an online format served as a new challenge to Russian higher medical education, outlining a range of problems, mainly related to the impossibility of recreating a real clinical situation. In the conditions of online classes, the Department of Endocrinology of Kursk State Medical University introduced a methodology for conducting online classes in the form of problem- based seminars, as well as an assessment of the effectiveness of this form of classes, in comparison with traditional ones. The use of problem-based seminars in the online class format demonstrated a higher efficiency of the training process. Students who studied using the problem method had higher academic progress in classes, higher grades at the end of the current studies, practical skills, and during the credit test. The holding of problem- based seminars, in the absence of the possibility of conducting face-to-face classes, made it possible to increase the effectiveness of online classes.