Flipping the classroom to teach Millennial residents medical leadership: a proof of concept

Abstract

IntroductionThe ongoing changes in health care delivery have resulted in the reform of educational content and methods of training in postgraduate medical leadership education. Health care law and medical errors are domains in medical leadership where medical residents desire training. However, the potential value of the flipped classroom as a pedagogical tool for leadership training within postgraduate medical education has not been fully explored. Therefore, we designed a learning module for this purpose and made use of the flipped classroom model to deliver the training.EvidenceThe flipped classroom model reverses the order of learning: basic concepts are learned individually outside of class so that more time is spent applying knowledge to discussions and practical scenarios during class. Advantages include high levels of interaction, optimal utilization of student and expert time and direct application to the practice setting. Disadvantages include the need for high levels of self-motivation and time constraints within the clinical setting.DiscussionEducational needs and expectations vary within various generations and call for novel teaching modalities. Hence, the choice of instructional methods should be driven not only by their intrinsic values but also by their alignment with the learners’ preference. The flipped classroom model is an educational modality that resonates with Millennial students. It helps them to progress quickly beyond the mere understanding of theory to higher order cognitive skills such as evaluation and application of knowledge in practice. Hence, the successful application of this model would allow the translation of highly theoretical topics to the practice setting within postgraduate medical education.

Stimulating Intrinsic Motivation in Millennial Students: A New Generation, a New Approach

“…Mentorship is a challenging developmental activity for both the mentor (Isenhart, 1996;Garden, 2009;Fryer et al, 2016) and mentee (Raab, 2014;Manzi et al, 2017). Millennials appreciate mentorship since many are typically high achievers (Fine, 2001;Nuffer et al, 2017) who feel insecure about their educational progress (Walker et al, 2016;Lucardie et al, 2017). However, it is also important for mentors to impress that their singular role is to guide their mentees in solving their own problems (Roemer, 2002;Ezell et al, 2013).…”

“…However, being more outspoken than previous generations (Kennedy et al, 2006;Gibson, 2018), millennial students are often perceived by their educators, as being self-centered (Mohr et al, 2011;Nuffer et al, 2017), and lacking an understanding of the roles or boundaries of this relationship (Archer, 2010;Lopes et al, 2015). In addition, millennial students are very eager to receive immediate feedback of their actions from their educators (Perera et al, 2009;Gauer and Jackson, 2018), and this enthusiasm is at times misconstrued by educators (Fryer et al, 2016;Lucardie et al, 2017). Thus, effective feedback provides students more freedom to choose their goals (Bronson, 2016;Hennessy et al, 2016) and identify effective approaches to pursue them (Fleming and Baume, 2006;Worly et al, 2018;Kusurkar, 2019).…”

“…In contrast, educators being of earlier generations usually tend to have an overbearing nature (Kong et al, 2014;Alrebish, 2018), and typically hold more rigid views (Alcamo et al, 2010;Sadowski et al, 2018). Therefore, they often consider millennial students to be privileged (Ahrweiler et al, 2014;Penny, 2017) and impatient (Khalaila, 2015;Lucardie et al, 2017). Thus, educators should be prepared to relinquish some control of the classroom (Archer, 2010;Zielezinski and Karlowski, 2015;Woolley and Fishbach, 2018), and realize that they are not the sole providers of knowledge (Evans and Cuffe, 2009;Emerson, 2017) as current students also have access to other sources of information (Magalhães et al, 2012;Min, 2018).…”

The Flipped Classroom as a Pedagogical Tool for Leadership Development in Postgraduate Medical Education

“…In designing this module, we chose to use the FCM as our method of instruction because: (a) It resonates well with the differing expectations and educational needs of different generation of learners [5,6], and (b) It can facilitate the quick transition from merely understanding a theoretical subject to higher order cognitive skills in students [26,27]. A recent systematic review on the FCM approach (Chen et al 2017) also justified the FCM as a promising teaching approach, when the intent is to increase the motivation, task value and engagement of learners.…”

The flipped classroom

“…Lucardie et al . consider the delivery of a pilot module in practice management and leadership for postgraduate medical trainees using the flipped classroom . The authors highlight that the choice of instructional method should consider both the intrinsic value of the method and the alignment of the approach with the learners’ preference.…”