The flipped classroom has gained significant traction since MOOCs have grown in popularity. A few years ago a Stanford study explored the concept in the context of teaching neuroscience.
“Our results suggest that students are better prepared to understand a theory after first exploring by themselves, and that tangible user interfaces are particularly well-suited for that purpose,” says Bertrand Schneider, a graduate student who led the research under the direction of Paulo Blikstein, an assistant professor of education.
Whilst the concept has not quite crossed the chasm yet, it is nonetheless gathering a growing evidence base to support it. Researchers from Concordia University believe flipping the classroom can play a crucial role in improving physics education.
The virtue of flipping the classroom
The researchers document their thinking in a recently published paper, and found improvements in both thinking and learning by engaging in a flipped approach.
“It has been shown that in typical physics classes, students’ beliefs about their own learning deteriorate or at best stay the same. I want to reverse that result,” the authors say.
“This study shows that if you combine a meta-cognitive activity with an interactive activity, students can better hone their thinking abilities for that course.”
Might a flipped approach be similarly advantageous in medical training? That was the question posed by a recent study conducted by the University of Eastern Finland. The early results suggest it most definitely does, with those students selected to receive a flipped education 85% more likely to receive a better score than their peers receiving a more traditional education.
Flipped medicine
The research specifically focused on the ability of students to write effective medical certificates and medical statements, both of which are an important part of the social security system in Finland as the medical certificate triggers a series of reimbursements of medical costs for patients.
The research divided students between a traditional classroom and a flipped classroom, before comparing their ability at writing appropriate medical certificates. This is traditionally something that is taught to fourth year medical students in Finland, but whilst in 2015 it was delivered in a traditional way, in 2016 the class was flipped, with students given video materials to study before each class.
Both the traditional and flipped class used the same background material to help them write the medical certificate for the fictional patient, with a random sample of 40 students selected each year for comparison.
Whilst this relatively small experiment is perhaps insufficient evidence to advocate widespread change, it is nonetheless interesting to note the significant improvement in performance of those taught in the flipped way. It would be interesting to see if the flipped approach was used for a longer timeframe whether the results would continue.
