Abstract:

The Special Master’s Program at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC SMP) is a well-established, one academic year program in which the GUMC SMP students take a combination of medical and graduate school courses in preparation for medical school. This program is taught mainly by traditional lecture and small group sessions, with some technological enhancements. In August, 2015, we opened a new branch of the SMP at a second campus, with the goal of delivering the same medical and graduate curriculum used at our main campus, but using a primarily flipped classroom model. Students at the new site (the Georgetown Downtown (GTDT) SMP) view lecture captures and other materials on their own time, allowing for a decompressed schedule of 2-3 hrs daily of in-class sessions for 4 days each week (~12 hrs), with Friday free for clinical work and community service. An on-site instructor provides the flipped sessions (problem-solving workshops, review slides, practice questions with audience response technology, and relevant case studies). Our goal was to have the GTDT students perform the same as their Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) SMP counterparts, despite the fact that they have one day a week devoted to clinical and service workload. Students self-selected for the campuses upon admission to the SMP, with enrollment limited to 22 in GTDT compared to 189 for GUMC. Comparing undergraduate grade point averages (GPA) and scores on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) of the two groups, incoming credentials of students at the two SMP locations were almost identical: Both GUMC SMP and GTDT SMP students had average undergraduate cumulative grade point averages (GPA) of 3.3 and average science GPA of 3.2 with an average MCAT score of 31. At this writing, as we approach the end of the one academic year program for this first cohort of students, despite the additional service load, the GTDT students have performed higher than the GUMC students in all of the medical courses (significantly higher in 2 of the 5 med courses), and scored significantly higher than the GUMC students in 2 out of 3 of the graduate courses taken, to date. Comparing the two SMP groups, their average scores in the 5 medical courses have been (mean ± SD): Molecular & Cellular Physiology, GUMC SMP 87.2% ± 6.1% vs. GTDT SMP 88.0% ± 5.6% (p=0.50); Metabolism, Nutrition & Endocrinology, GUMC 83.3% ±6.5% vs. GTDT 86.7% ± 6.3% (p=0.02); Cardiopulmonary, GUMC 81.2% ±6.4% vs. GTDT 83.9% ± 6.5%, (p=0.08); Gastrointestinal, GUMC 83.5% ± 7.3% vs. GTDT 86.8% ± 5.8% (p=0.015); Renal GUMC 84.3% ± 9.2% vs. GTDT 87.3% ± 7.3% (p=0.08). The GTDT students also performed significantly higher than the GUMC SMP students in all but one grad course, to date: Principles of Gross Anatomy, GUMC 92.2% ± 6.2% vs. GTDT 92.3% ± 8.8% (p=0.96); Fundamentals of Molecular Biology & Genetics, GUMC 82.9% ± 5.7% vs. GTDT 87.0% ± 7.1% (p=0.015); Intro to Neurophysiology, GUMC 88.5% ± 6.0% vs. GTDT 95.0% ± 5.4% (p=0.00004).

Conclusions:
GTDT students performed higher (and many times significantly higher) than their GUMC SMP counterparts in all eight courses completed to date. These initial data suggest that the hybrid model used in GTDT, consisting of lecture capture and flipped classroom, is effective in teaching both medical and graduate courses, and might even result in better learning outcomes. Data on student satisfaction and perception are also being collected for analysis.

Keywords:

Flipped classroom, technology-enhanced learning, self-directed learning, educational outcomes.