Hello fellow educator –

Welcome to the first email series of 2024!

This one will span several weeks, so I hope you are here for the long haul!

Before we get into the Pillars of Active Learning, we will take the first two weeks to discuss the benefits and challenges of implementing an active learning classroom.

Into the forest of research 🌳

Significant research is available on active learning techniques in nursing education and other health-related disciplines like pharmacy, physical therapy, and medicine. Over the years, as I have read and researched, I noticed themes, and now, I organize the articles into one of these “benefit buckets.”

These themes highlight the wide range of benefits active learning can bring beyond passing rates or exam scores. We have made so much progress, especially since I went to nursing school, in using the lab space and simulation equipment to bring the clinical setting to life.

But the last great frontier we can reimagine is the theory course in a lecture hall.

While there have been recent changes, lecture is still the dominant form of instruction in higher education. In a study of STEM classrooms, only 12% utilized active learning techniques. However, evidence shows that traditional lectures do little to help students learn, retain, or apply information. In a recent meta-analysis of research, 64% of the sampled articles showed that active learning groups outperformed the lecture group on various statistical measures. Only 3.6% showed the opposite effect.

In addition, the conception of effective college teaching has changed dramatically over the past few years. The truth is that most of our current and future students are a part of Generation Z and Generation Alpha, the first generation to grow up with easily accessible internet connections. For them, a 3-hour, scripted lecture on fluid and electrolytes (this is how my first theory course went) will not be engaging or provide them with the tools to function as a nurse.

Cooking Inspiration 🍳

While working at a local technical college, a new culinary arts program classroom popped up in a hallway on my way to the coffee shop. They built a beautiful kitchen with floor-to-ceiling glass (so people like me could snoop while walking by), bowls and pans on the countertops, and functioning stoves and mixers groups of students were working with. Students had class right there; they brought in stools, books, and notes and had a short lesson before they started to cook.

Is it possible that we could reimagine our nursing classrooms to align this closely to practice?

What do you think is the biggest challenge in connecting the theory course to clinical practice? What gets in the way of holding our theory sessions in a similar way to a culinary arts program?

Thank you for taking the time to answer this quick question (there is space for “other” if you would like to share your ideas). Or if you have a longer response to share, you can always hit reply to this email. I will include the survey results next week, along with a few of my ideas about the challenges we face in this final frontier.

Thank you for being a part of this community and sharing your ideas. See you next week!

References

Eng, N. (2017). Teaching college: The ultimate guide to lecturing, presenting, and engaging students.

Jaschik, S. (2018). Lecture instruction: Alive and not so well. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/04/02/study-finds-lecture-remains-dominant-form-teaching-stem​

Martella, A.M., Martella, R.C., Yatcilla, J.K., Newson, A., Shannon, E.N., & Voorhis, C. (2023). How rigorous is active learning research in STEM education? An examination of key internal validity controls in intervention studies. Educational Psychology Review, 35(107).

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