Instructional media selection principles for online medical education and emerging models for the new normal

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting need to avoid in-person classes, compelled many faculty members to convert to a completely online instructional format. The literature on selecting media for medical educators, however, provided little assistance for them to make choices that facilitated learning through using alternative online instruction practices. In this study, we addressed the lack of guidance for the use of media to facilitate the effective online medical education. To optimise the transition from face-to-face educational modalities to online learning, we incorporated insights from theories of media synchronicity and learning. We considered the value of existing learning theories in influencing how we could guide entrenched face-to-face educators to online learning practice. Therefore, we employed existing theories and practice to assist in developing an algorithmic approach to guiding these educators. We reassessed the way taxonomies of learning objectives, practice-oriented learning experiences, the social and collaborative features of learning activities, and media synchronicity theory could have augmented face-to-face teaching, and influenced how these could be reconfigured to assist in the transition to online learning. Consequently, we have developed key principles to inform the continuity of design and selection of instructional media in the transition to medical online learning. We have constructed specific criteria for media selection that correspond to the 12 goals of medical learning. We found that the majority of the goals can be more enhanced by synchronous media than asynchronous versions. We discuss the role of instructional media in emergency online medical education as well as emerging models of media selection for the new normal in medical education and future directions for medical education media research.