Effectiveness of Active Learning Strategies: Student and Faculty Perceptions of Flipped Classrooms and Team-Based Learning

Nursing education is in the midst of a paradigmatic shift from a traditional, content driven model to one that supports student engagement in the learning process through active teaching strategies. The traditional lecture methodology has proven inadequate to address issues such as content overload, technological advances, an increasingly complex health care environment, and the persistent gap between educational preparedness and clinical practice. Additional challenges include changing student demographics, an exponential increase in new knowledge, and the importance of contextualizing information which raise important questions about the adequacy of traditional teaching approaches. Benner and colleagues (2010) encourage nursing faculty to shift the focus of education from decontextualized knowledge to teaching for a sense of salience. Innovative teaching strategies such as flipped or blended classrooms, scrambled instructional methods, and team-based learning approaches are becoming widely implemented to support a learner centered educational pedagogy. However, the student role change from passive to active learner does not occur without a sense of anxiety associated with the perception of an increased workload and unsettled classroom environments (Rotellar & Cain, 2016). Faculty also may express concerns about content not being covered, a lack of experience with techniques, student dissatisfaction and poor exam scores.

The purpose of this poster presentation is to explore faculty and student perception of the effectiveness of active learning strategies in didactic courses that previously delivered content using a traditional lecture format. Using a quasi-experimental design, a convenience sample of second semester BSN students at a Midwestern university will be asked to complete a 14-item questionnaire on their perception of the effectiveness of active learning strategies, engagement in the learning process and retention of information. The questionnaire will also include 3 open-ended questions on what the student liked, disliked or would change about the teaching methodology. Faculty members who are using innovative teaching strategies in their courses will be asked to complete a questionnaire on the influence of innovative teaching methodologies on student engagement, satisfaction, and performance outcomes.