MANUSCRIPT: Study Measures Benefits of a ‘Flipped’ Pharmacy Course
A study comparing traditional and “flipped” versions of a pharmacy-school course at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that students much preferred the flipped course and got better grades on the final examination. The flipped course replaced in-class lectures with videos that the students watched before they came to class to take part in a series of activities—assessments, presentations, discussions, quizzes, and “microlectures.”
The study is to be published in February in Academic Medicine, the journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, but it is available online now (it can be downloaded using the “Article as PDF” tool). It reports on the 2011 and 2012 versions of a first-year course for graduate students, “Basic Pharmaceutics II.”
In 2011 the course relied on 75-minute lectures two days a week—a total of 29 hours’ worth—plus occasional quizzes. In 2012 instructors “offloaded all in-class lectures to self-paced online videos”—averaging around 35 minutes each and totaling under 15 hours—that students could pause and review as necessary. Class sessions were “devoted to student-centered learning exercises designed to assess their knowledge, promote critical thinking, and stimulate discussion.”
Following the 2012 course, only about 15 percent of the 162 students said they would have preferred a traditional lecture-style classroom experience. Others wrote comments such as “It was different, but I enjoyed coming to class more and I also feel that I will retain the information for longer. It helped make learning ‘fun’ again and not just endless hours of lectures and PowerPoints.”
Written by Brian S McGowan, PhD
Dr. McGowan has served in leadership positions in numerous medical educational organizations and commercial supporters and is a Fellow of the Alliance (FACEhp). He founded the Outcomes Standardization Project, launched and hosted the Alliance Podcast, and most recently launched and hosts the JCEHP Emerging Best Practices in CPD podcast. In 2012 he Co-Founded ArcheMedX, Inc, a healthcare informatics and e-learning company to apply his research in practice.
