Multidisciplinary teaching and learning biophotonics: Assessing the effectiveness of fully online outreach events

The demand for biophotonics technologies has rapidly increased over the years and supply of professionals capable of working in multi- and inter-disciplinary topics associated with tissue optics and translating optical technologies to the clinic are still scarce. Despite the number of programs to created to increase the number of high-quality biophotonics professionals, most of these programs are focused on post-graduate audiences and involve in-person activities. Particularly on the education side, online teaching and learning (OTL) have exponentially grown over the years as universities adopted online courses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing restrictions required courses to be offered fully online. Educators have adopted combinations of resources including online apps, simulations, virtual labs, and massive open online courses (MOOCs) to complement recorded or video-conferenced classes. However, most of these resources were not designed to be integrated into virtual courses, compromising the quality of instruction/education especially in events relying on in-person activities to convey information quicker than online activities. These events include short-term courses and outreach events, where fostering students' engagement and interest with fully online activities can be challenging. The quality of instruction is further compromised when events involve multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary OTL, which includes biophotonics and biomedical optics courses. To overcome the aforementioned challenges, we have developed and tested a variety of activities and resources for a short-term virtual biophotonics workshop (BW) including webinars, at-home experiments, and computer simulations. Our BW targeted undergraduate students and secondary-school teachers with diverse backgrounds and offered activities to meet needs of learners with diverse backgrounds, learning styles and education levels. Resources provided self-paced learning over the duration of the workshop. Our participants' feedback for 2020 and 2021 BWs showed >78.6% of participating respondents considered every activity of the BW important for their learning process. Also, every BW activity received >69.2% "Very good"and ""Good"responses for overall learning, >91.7% for quality of teaching, >90% for quality of subject matter. Similarly, >75% of participants were "Very interested"or "Interested"in every activity.