THEME: TAL2021 - The Good Example - Student preparation, active participation and flipped classroom in online teaching
At TAL2021, Clinical associate professor at the Institute for Clinical Research Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen, presented his experiences with student preparation, active participation and learning outcome in a flipped classroom on the Bachelor in Medicine during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Goals for the learning activity
The learning goals for the course, with which the students were to work, were ‘analyze changed structure and function in the body and its main organ systems in different diseases and conditions’ and ‘demonstrate scientific curiosity and reflect critically on knowledge and assumptions’. With only an online learning environment the intention was for the students to learn how to benefit from flipped classroom to increase their overall learning outcome.
The learning activity
Flipped classroom was used in such a way that Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen would share two videos with the students before the class to prepare for the online teaching on Zoom. One video would introduce the theme of the class while the other video presented how to read scientific articles. This was done in four separate classes at the Bachelor in Medicine at SDU.
The impact of the learning activity
Each class ended with an online survey on Zoom where the students were asked four questions regarding their learning outcome of the flipped classroom. Regarding:
1) motivation for preparation,
2) learning outcome of preparation,
3) active participation in class, and
4) total learning outcome,
In summary, a significant proportion of the students indicate that they have gained more from the teaching with the use of video in preparation.
How can this practice be transferred in the future?
The conclusions were presented at a teachers’ meeting and received positive feedback. Flipped learning combined with asynchronous videos as a preparation tool is a relatively simple tool for teachers at a university and it is especially useful for smaller classes where the students prepare an assignment that will be solved in the class. This turned out to be a successful form of online teaching.
Reference
Nielsen, M. W. (2021). Student preparation, active participation in teaching, and learning outcome in a flipped classroom during Covid19 lockdown in the bachelor program in medicine at the University of Southern Denmark. Presentation at TAL2021