3 key points

• In this way of flipped classroom students valued first seeking the knowledge before the expert came to present and discuss the subject.

• Our analysis revealed that students learn when they overcome difficulties, when they seek facts themselves and discuss in seminars and when their own knowledge is challenged.

• In planning their courses, teachers must give students opportunities to be active learners instead of passive listeners and knowledge consumers.

When students come to university for advanced studies, there must be challenges. The academic environment should provide opportunities for students to develop important metacompetencies such as problem-solving abilities for tackling unfamiliar problems, training in oral and written communication, and self-regulated planning of their work and studies (Lizzio 2002). The question is if we, the teachers who plan the courses, use the short time allotted to teaching and learning in the best way possible?

To become a specialized primary care nurse in Sweden, students have one year of primary care (with a Master´s paper) and two months of specialized pharmacology. One aim of the pharmacology course is for students to learn about nursing care for patients with common skin diseases, examine them and prescribe simple medications. For years, the traditional teaching approach in this course has been to invite a medical doctor to give a lecture and then to have seminar discussions and an exam. Inspired by the pedagogical discussion of “flipped classroom” (Gerstein 2011) we asked ourselves whether it would be more instructive for students to begin by searching for relevant information on skin disorders instead of by being passive listeners during a lecture?

Aim/focus of the innovation

To give students the opportunity to be more active in their own learning, we reversed the traditional order of learning methods.

Implementation of the innovation                                                                                               

The students first had to find information on how to examine skin disorders and nursing care for patients with common skin diseases, and then write a text that would be discussed in a seminar prior to meeting the lecturer. In this new arrangement, we hoped students would become more active, practice evaluating knowledge and prepare themselves before the lecture.

Methods used to assess the innovation

To understand more about how students learn in this reversed teaching order, we asked all students in the course to voluntarily write a paper about their learning experiences. All 23 students decided to participate in the study. Their mean age was 38 years and mean time working as a nurse, prior to the Master’s Programme in Primary Care, 7 years. In 2015, two researchers jointly conducted a content analysis of all written data, using Graneheim and Lundman’s (2004) approach.

Key findings

Our analysis revealed four categories concerning how students experienced learning in this reversed order. They described they learn when they seek facts themselves, when they overcome difficulties, when their own knowledge is challenged and when they are able to prepare and think before they meet an expert. The analysis and our findings will be presented in detail, including codes and quotations, at the conference. We will also offer a theoretical discussion of Kolb´s Learning Circle, applying the concepts Concrete Experience, Active Experimentation, Reflective Observation and Abstract Conceptualization to our findings (Kolb 1984).

References

Gerstein, J. (2011). The Flipped Classroom Model: A Full Picture. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/the-flipped-classroom-model-a-full-picture.

Graneheim, U.H. & Lundman, B. (2004). Qualitative content analysis in nursing research: concepts, procedures and measures to achieve trustworthiness. Nurse Education Today, vol. 24, 105-112.

Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential learning: experiences as the source of learning and development. New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs

Lizzio, A., Wilson, K. & Simons, R. (2002). University students’ perceptions of the learning environment and academic outcomes: implications for theory and practice. Studies in Higher Education, vol. 27, no. 1, 27-52.