Education Research: Flipped classroom in neurology: Principles, practices, and perspectives

How to most effectively deliver a large amount of information in an engaging environment that encourages critical thinking is a question that has long plagued educators. With ever-increasing demands on both resident and faculty time, from shrinking duty hours to increased patient complexity, combined with the exponential growth of medical knowledge and unequal access to the spectrum of neurologic subspecialties around the country, this question has become especially pertinent to neurology residency training. A team of educators from the American Academy of Neurology's A.B. Baker Section on Neurological Education sought to review the current evidence regarding the implementation of the flipped classroom format. This educational model has only recently been applied to health care education along the training continuum, and a small collection of articles has, so far, used disparate methods of curricular implementation and assessment. While the feedback from learners is generally positive, a number of obstacles to implementation exist, most notably learner time commitments. These are presented with discussion of potential solutions along with suggestions for future studies.