As leaders in the business of education, we are all looking for ways to raise the quality of what’s possible in a classroom situation. However, it can be quite difficult trying to figure out how to maximize that critical—and costly—face-to-face time.
Flipped classrooms, a pedagogical model where content and learning tasks are assigned to learners prior to attending a live classroom experience, can help both learners and educators get the most out of their time together.
Dr. Brian McGowan, Chief Learning Officer of ArcheMedx and speaker-facilitator at the upcoming Leading Learning event, Learning • Technology • Design™ (LTD), is a flipped learning expert and also our guest on this week’s episode of the Leading Learning Podcast. Brian tells Jeff all about his data-driven approach to this relatively new model of content delivery, as well as how he has structured flipped learning experiences to achieve successful outcomes.
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Read the Show Notes
[00:18] –A reminder to check out the upcoming Leading Learning event, Learning • Technology • Design (LTD) to be held May 18-19, 2016 in Arlington, VA. The event is designed specifically to help professionals in the business of continuing education and professional development find new and better ways to engage learners and create lasting impact through the effective use of technology.
[01:37] – A preview of what will be covered in this episode where Jeff Cobb talks with Dr. Brian McGowan, chief learning officer of ArcheMedx and host of the Science of CE Podcast, about flipped learning. Brian is also a speaker-facilitator at Learning • Technology • Design™ (LTD).
[04:00] – Introduction to Brian and some background information about who he is and what he does.
[04:46] – How do you define the term, flipped learning? Brian talks about how they are trying to equal the playing field of the learning population to make it as homogeneous as possible so they can make face-to-face time as effective as possible.
[06:21] –You mentioned that there are thousands of ways to deliver knowledge prior to bringing learners together in a classroom (videos, articles, Webinars, etc.), so what are some flipped learning scenarios you have implemented and how well have they worked? Brian shares that his interest in flipped learning is largely, if not entirely, based in his interest around data driven learning. He explains that his approach has been to see what data they can try to generate from learners in order to benefit both the learner and educator. He says that there are thousands of ways to deliver flipped learning but they aren’t all effective.
[09:25] – You have done some work around flipped learning with the American Nurse’s Credentialing Center (ANCC). Can you talk about what you did there, what you learned, and what data came out of it? Brian shares that they gathered subject matter experts to build a curriculum of online activities where learners could go and interact to consume content anytime over the 4-5 weeks leading up to the live workshop. He says that one of the first lessons they learned was to continually communicate with participants to remind them to complete the work. The more structure and communication they provided during the window, the more people completed the full curriculum.
[14:28] – Besides persistence and social proof/peer pressure, are there other parts of how you make sure people will commit to participate? Brian explains the benefit of a registration process to know who is going to be in the room. He also stresses the importance of having engaging content and the additional upfront work that needs to go into flipped classrooms (from the educators standpoint) and how that is wasted if people don’t complete the work.
[18:03] –Further discussion about the ANCC scenario and the impact data that came out of it.
[19:57] – Brian shares some interesting data points he learned that speak to the benefit of flipped learning:
- Learners that engaged in the online series were twice as likely to have made a significant practice change prior to even showing up for the applied workshop
- Learners had recognition and familiarity with the thought leaders because they recognized them from the videos. This builds both homogeneity and familiarity.
[22:14] – It sounds like a fair amount of work to do flipped classrooms the “right” way. If you had to take a simple approach to this, is it worth, for example, to simply find a video that fits your field and then give an assessment (pre and post)? Brian says that doing something simple is worth it as long as you give the learners content and make sure that you can measure something about it. He explains that you need to recognize the resources you have available to you and that although it doesn’t have to be expensive, it does require significant planning and thought. He also shares the value in dedicating time at the beginning of the workshop to talk about what learners had accomplished in the weeks leading up in order to galvanize them and create a community.
[26:16] – A summary of the components necessary to structure an effective flipped experience:
- Deliver valuable pre-content
- Provide measurement around that content
- Communicate persistently and persuasively around it to ensure that they will engage with the content
- Leverage that in the actual classroom environment
- Brian adds that the final piece is to make sure that there is faculty buy-in. The experiences they are creating should not be finalized until the days leading up to the live workshop in order to incorporate the data and to create an individualized experience.
[29:05] – Jeff mentions that Brian hosts the Science of CE podcast where he talks about the science of learning.
[30:04] – What are your own lifelong learning habits? If somebody had designed a flipped learning experience for you, how would you make sure to prepare? Brian shares that he is a big learning filter guy and that he has created saved searches (“nets”) to gather information about things he is interested in. He dedicates about 90 minutes a week to see what his various “nets” have caught for him. (Note: See Building Your Curation Toolbox for a similar approach.)
[32:33] – Where to find out more and connect with Brian:
- Brian is going to be a speaker/facilitator at the upcoming Leading Learning event, Learning • Technology • Design (LTD)
- Linked In
- Twitter: @BrianSMcGowan
[33:19] – Wrap-Up
A reminder to check out the upcoming Leading Learning event, Learning • Technology • Design (LTD) to be held May 18-19, 2016 in Arlington, VA.
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[35:22] – Sign off
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