Faculty within a nursing program at a Midwest, public university completed a workshop designed to facilitate faculty development in the utilization of a flipped classroom approach to teaching.  This workshop, held in person, provided the participants with the knowledge, tools and access to experts needed to develop one traditional lecture course to a flipped classroom approach.  While the goal of the workshop was to encourage all faculty members to develop one flipped class session, all of the faculty members exceeded that initial request.  As a group, the faculty members were able to discuss and answer the following:

• What is an appropriate amount of content to expect a student to read prior to attending class?
• How can the students’ understanding of the class preparation best be assessed?
• What are meaningful learning activities to be used in class?
• How can the faculty best utilize the flipped classroom learning approach to bridge the gap between knowledge acquisition and application (noted by development of clinical judgment)?

All faculty utilized a flipped classroom approach to teaching in at least 50% of their face-to-face courses in the fall semester.  Courses ranged from fundamentals to the provision of care to both adults and geriatric clients and pathophysiology.  To best prepare for class, each course utilized a course map, detailing the scheduled course date, content to be individually covered via electronic text and other selected materials prior to class as well as an overview of what would be covered within class.  Classroom instruction ranged from brief mini-lectures at the beginning of class to more directed presentations by the faculty.  Following this sharing of information, students were regularly divided into small groups, ranging from 3-5 students, and completed a group activity.  Group activities included case studies and active learning strategies.  The intent of all group activities was to assist the student to translate the massive amounts of information presented at a knowledge and comprehension level to a higher level of learning by the application, analysis, and synthesis of the material [5].  Additionally, the faculty was able to assist the students to critically think through the information in a way that fosters the development of clinical judgment [6].

The development of clinical judgment is fostered by providing the student with intentional support to guide their thought process through material in a way that provides repetition of skill and concept application to a variety of scenarios [7].  To stimulate this development, students build upon foundational information they have assumed responsibility for in an attempt to apply that knowledge in the safe setting provided in limited class-time. To best obtain student buy-in for this approach, it is essential that the faculty member clearly demonstrate how the student’s growing ability to apply concepts to practice relates not only to academic performance, but the provision of care. Failure to clearly define how active learning will assist the student to consistently think through clinical scenarios may result in the student’s perception that they are simply teaching themselves the material and not receiving the academic support they traditionally experience.