Jones & Bartlett Learning Nursing Blog

Welcome back guest blogger, Dr. Karen Hessler, PhD, FNP-C, author of Flipping the Nursing Classroom: Where Interactive Learning Meets Technology.

The last blog of 2016 has arrived after a busy fall in Colorado. Flipping my class this past semester was a fantastic success, and prompts me to encourage all of you to keep up the great work to perfect your flipped pedagogy. My teaching is more meaningful and my evaluations are a nice reflection of student appreciation for my efforts to bring to the classroom a new and innovative teaching style. Although much of the research discusses student resistance to the flipped classroom (including my own!) I will have to say that once students experience the flipped classroom as it is meant to be delivered, they are extremely appreciative of its implementation. Students realize how much they’ve learned, and how much more they’ve learned within the flipped classroom than in the traditional lecture-based teaching structure they experience in other classes. In particular, my students appreciate the application of content that the flipped classroom allows.

Read a new post from our guest blogger, Dr. Karen Hessler, PhD, FNP-C, author of Flipping the Nursing Classroom: Where Interactive Learning Meets Technology.

Happy Fall to everyone! I trust that nursing classrooms across the country and around the world are all abuzz with students and faculty working together to teach and learn the concepts and pearls of wisdom necessary to develop the next generation of nurses. As I think about the flipped classroom at its best and brightest, I wonder if we are considering the spacial aspect of our classrooms carefully enough.

Please welcome our guest blogger, Dr. Karen Hessler, PhD, FNP-C, author of Flipping the Nursing Classroom: Where Interactive Learning Meets Technology, for a post on the highs and lows of flipped classrooms.

Summer is such a great time to take a few minutes to reflect on our teaching practices in the classroom and clinical settings. Even if you find yourself busy with publications, presentations at conferences, and teaching coursework during the summer, taking a moment to think about how we teach is a worthy endeavor. As I watched the fireworks display on the 4^th of July with my family this year, it made me think of a parallel to my flipped classroom experiences. Some of the fireworks were beautiful, brilliant, and awe-inspiring, while others seemed to be…..well, duds.

The flipped learning model is a hot topic in nursing education right now. Why is this? Research has shown that it can improve traditional teaching methods and promote active learning and participation in the classroom. That's why Flipping the Nursing Classroom: Where Active Learning Meets Technology by Karen Hessler is not only timely but also essential. In a recent review, Susan G. Wiers, DNP, from Michigan State University College of Nursing, for Doody's Review Service, writes that,

“This unique book is well written and provides a wealth of information to guide even novice nursing instructors interested in the innovative pedagogical model of the flipped classroom.”

Nurse educators are constantly looking for innovative teaching strategies to meet students' needs and to improve learning outcomes. Increasingly, educators are turning to a flipped classroom strategy where students receive lecture content prior to class and work through applications and activities during class time. Why this change? Research is showing that it can promote active learning and participation in the classroom with the assistance of fellow students and the instructor. That's why we just published Flipping the Nursing Classroom: Where Active Learning Meets Technology by Karen Hessler, an innovative text that focuses on the flipped learning model in the framework of nursing education.