When I was preparing to teach my first nursing theory course, the nursing department was buzzing with this new concept called "The Flipped Classroom." I could overhear heated discussions about the implications of a flipped classroom in our break room. The general consensus was that this trend in education could "revolutionize" the way undergraduate nursing students learn theoretical and clinical knowledge. The fervor was close to cult-like. I explored this concept the way I usually approach new ideas: With a heavy dose of skepticism.
What is a Flipped Classroom?
For the visual learners out there, this YouTube video has an excellent summary of the philosophy behind the flipped classroom:
Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann (2013) describe a flipped classroom as a way for the educator to use their class time more effectively. To the authors, lecturing to a class may not be the most efficient use of class time. In a flipped classroom, the students come to your class having already listened to your lecture online and/or viewed your PowerPoint presentation. That way, class time can be used to apply what they have learned from the online content. The educator becomes the facilitator of classroom activities and can (theoretically) give more attention to the unique learning needs of their students. This gives the instructor more opportunities to circulate around the classroom, giving individualized instruction to students and filling in any gaps in the students' understanding of concepts. The students are essentially doing what would have been their homework in class and their new homework becomes watching the lecture online.
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| Freedom from lectures? |
Technology and the Flipped Classroom
This program allows the user to record or "capture" their voice and any movement or activity they perform on their computer. The instructor would record their lecture using this software and upload it to an integrated learning platform like Desire2Learn or a file hosting service like Dropbox. The student could then listen to the lecture at a time that is convenient for them and come to class prepared for the associated participatory learning activities.
Nursing Education and the Flipped Classroom
As educators, we have a limited amount of time to cover each of the learning objectives for that class. In my case, I had only two hours to teach extremely complex concepts like acute kidney injury and acid-base imbalances. My go-to way of teaching was to create a PowerPoint presentation, dispense as much content as possible via the "sage on the stage" method and hope I had enough time for my participatory learning activities. In my heart of hearts I knew I could be doing better. I wanted to students to not only learn the concepts but understand the concepts as well. I felt like the really rich learning would take place using patient case studies, classroom debates around ethical issues and demonstrations of complex psychomotor skills. I sought the advice of one of my mentors and she suggested I try it out! I will discuss my flipped classroom experience in the next blog post called New Insights in Nursing Education.
Sams, A. & Bergman, J. (2013). Flip your students' learning. Educational Leadership, 70(6), 16-20.
