The purpose of this presentation is to investigate an alternative method of nursing classroom teaching with the aim of better preparing nurses for the diverse and complex patient population they will serve. The flipped classroom is an alternate strategy that has been found to be successful in many educational programs. It is an innovative approach to nursing classroom education.
Weekly seminars or lectures traditionally present new information to the nursing student. The student becomes a vacuum consuming everything the instructor feeds them. They leave the class to study the material and prepare for testing the following week. There is rarely time for application activities. Until the student is “tested” on the disseminated material, the instructor may not know which students struggled on which concepts. Then it is on to more new material. This is a teacher centered strategy, as opposed to a learner centered approach.
In the flipped classroom the student comes prepared to move on to application activities that are designed to increase critical thinking abilities. The instructor becomes the facilitator building on what the student already knows or has recently learned.
Methods:
The Nursing Care of Adults 1 class in the prelicensure BSN program at Purdue Global University adopted the flipped classroom approach. In the flipped classroom the student prepares for the week’s lesson by reading, watching videos, completing a pre-seminar worksheet, and viewing a PowerPoint presentation from the instructor.
The classroom time is dedicated to active learning. Appropriate application of learned material is essential to the success of the prelicensure nursing student. Students who engage in active learning are more likely to increase their understanding, problem-solving ability, and critical thinking skills. In class activities included unfolding case studies, simulations, group assignments, worksheets, games, and puzzles.
Results:
The flipped classroom method proved to increase student knowledge about the current lesson, as evidenced by the increase in quiz and exam grades. The new strategy was implemented in the last term of 2018. There are five terms each year at Purdue Global University. The quiz and testing results after the flipped classroom was instituted showed increase in average grades. Student quiz and exam scores rose 10% from 2018 to 2019.
Conclusion:
The purpose of nursing education is to prepare the student to care for a population that have complex health needs and multiple comorbidities. To provide effective care requires the nurse to be a problem solver with critical thinking abilities. For knowledge to have value, the student must practice application. The flipped classroom provides for that practice, whereas traditional methods do not.
Research will need to be ongoing as this study was limited. It was a short-term review of one course. As more faculty adopt the flipped method at Purdue Global University more data will be gathered. The conclusion can be reached that flipping the class has improved learning in one course. This study does not bear out any long-term benefit regarding content retention or correlation to NCLEX success.