To share faculty experiences using the Flipgrid app to enhance APRN students’ sense of community and promote engagement in active learning
Methods:
With the proliferation of high-tech equipment in medical centers as well as advances in telehealth, nurses’ competence with technology is critical. Concurrently, students' experiences with learning technologies and enrollment in graduate online and hybrid coursework continues to increase nationally. To meet the demands of health care and the preferences of prospective students, nursing education has incorporated online and hybrid course approaches, and enhanced traditional face-to-face lectures. Given the value of active learning approaches (Freeman et al., 2014; Carley, 2015) as well as social interaction (Keengwe, Adjei-Boateng, & Diteeyont, 2013; Knapp, 2018; Lohr & Haley, 2018), we developed Flipgrid learning experiences to promote student engagement with one another and/or with course content. These exploratory efforts took place in hybrid and face-to-face courses. Challenges and benefits are described below.
Flipgrid is a free video discussion tool available for use on most major platforms and devices. The application allows participants to record a brief video up to 5 minutes and share with other participants. Students and/or instructors may respond via their own short video.
Using the TPACK framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), course instructors created the desired topics in Flipgrid and provided the students with the link. Written instructions for Flipgrid were also available in the course learning platform and the instructional designer was available to students by email or phone. The first assignment was for the students, instructor, and instructional designer to introduce themselves. The introductory video provided opportunities for creating more holistic introductions. Creativity in personal videos was evident as participants chose to include children, pets, or make the video from a favorite location. Sharing early experiences, faculty developed a beginning synergy and created additional assignments such as difficult conversations with patients, article presentations, and Lincoln-Douglas style health policy debates on contentious issues of the Affordable Care Act.
Results:
Student comments, course evaluations, and ongoing survey data suggest positive student attitudes about these activities intended to develop community and active learning experiences. For some students, being able to respond verbally was preferred over a written discussion board. Creativity was inherent in these assignments. Several students took the initiative to have colleagues role play patients in the difficult conversations assignment. Students reported having to repeat their submission if they went over the allotted time but did not report difficulty learning to use the app.
There is a short learning curve for faculty to become familiar with this app. Faculty felt the format, which gave a face and voice to each student, enhanced their engagement. This format may be prohibitive for large courses as it can be time consuming to review all student videos depending on the length. It may still be useful for introductions and limited assignments.
Conclusion:
Flipgrid is a reliable, appropriate, and manageable tool to employ in APRN education. It allows for diverse assignments in hybrid and face-to-face courses and promotes student engagement with peers and content.