Study help for flipped classroom

[parscompacta56]

So im two months into a flipped classroom curriculum and I am straight up not having a good time. As much as id love to complain about it (and gladly will in separate posts most likely), i cant change the curriculum and just need to adapt. I am really struggling with studying and managing my time. We usually have about 7-8 hours of videos to watch/documents to read for the week and have mandatory TBL/CBL 9-4 T-R with quizzes on fridays. We also always have a few hours of in person presentations of some kind/mandatory activities on mondays. AKA the only unadultured days I have are saturday and sunday but even if i just did my first pass in a day id only have one day to do a second. I really hate teaching myself and miss class so i find myself not waching the videos during the weekend and then dying during the week. im constantly exhausted and my grades are poor. By the time I get home during the week its after 4pm/5pm and by the time I make dinner and walk the dog i just want to go to bed. Any advice from people who are in a flipped classroom curriculum?

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[KirksvilleKrunk]

My school has flipped classroom. It's as terrible as you say. In fact, TBL discussion sets you back because it's a bunch of clueless students trying to explain stuff to each other. Best thing I can recommend is try to focus on boards-only prep material and ignore class stuff as much as you can. Do anki flashcards from pre-made decks during TBL as much as you can. There's no time to make your own flashcards. Look at your syllabus and try to get ahead 1-2 weeks by pulling out relevant material from board prep videos and Anki. Do this consistently and you'll be in a way better place. Some weekends will suck but eventually you'll get a good routine going. I'm able to get my 8-9 hours of sleep and still stay ahead of the curve this way. Wake up 2 hours early before class and do all your studying, that way you won't be braindead trying to study when you get home from TBL. Game changer for me.

 

[parscompacta56]

My school has flipped classroom. It's as terrible as you say. In fact, TBL discussion sets you back because it's a bunch of clueless students trying to explain stuff to each other. Best thing I can recommend is try to focus on boards-only prep material and ignore class stuff as much as you can. Do anki flashcards from pre-made decks during TBL as much as you can. There's no time to make your own flashcards. Look at your syllabus and try to get ahead 1-2 weeks by pulling out relevant material from board prep videos and Anki. Do this consistently and you'll be in a way better place. Some weekends will suck but eventually you'll get a good routine going. I'm able to get my 8-9 hours of sleep and still stay ahead of the curve this way. Wake up 2 hours early before class and do all your studying, that way you won't be braindead trying to study when you get home from TBL. Game changer for me.

i recently received almost the same advice from an upperclassman but am terrified to make the switch lol. My main thing has been trying to motivate myself to teach myself during first pass. I really did love going to lecture both because of the atmosphere and obviously being forced to take in the material lol. I too hate tbl but we cant do anything else during it as there are questions we have to answer collectively as a small group and enter into the schools software and are then randomly called on individually to explain our answers. Its 6 hours a week of torture

 

[KirksvilleKrunk]

i recently received almost the same advice from an upperclassman but am terrified to make the switch lol. My main thing has been trying to motivate myself to teach myself during first pass. I really did love going to lecture both because of the atmosphere and obviously being forced to take in the material lol. I too hate tbl but we cant do anything else during it as there are questions we have to answer collectively as a small group and enter into the schools software and are then randomly called on individually to explain our answers. Its 6 hours a week of torture

Sounds exactly like my school, hah. As soon as I started to ignore class material as my primary method of learning, I became way better off. Skim it the night before exams for small things your profs might ask. I found BnB extremely clutch for 1st year TBL, use your class ppts/syllabus as a guide for which content you need to review from BnB. Early on in M1 is when you need to switch up your studying if the current process isn't working. You don't want to be struggling midway. Yeah we do get called on to present our cases too, but you can definitely fit in a bunch of flashcards during TBL breaks/downtime from discussions. It will payoff big over time.

 

[parscompacta56]

Sounds exactly like my school, hah. As soon as I started to ignore class material as my primary method of learning, I became way better off. Skim it the night before exams for small things your profs might ask. I found BnB extremely clutch for 1st year TBL, use your class ppts/syllabus as a guide for which content you need to review from BnB. Early on in M1 is when you need to switch up your studying if the current process isn't working. You don't want to be struggling midway. Yeah we do get called on to present our cases too, but you can definitely fit in a bunch of flashcards during TBL breaks/downtime from discussions. It will payoff big over time.

Our TBL is actually not even cases, they put a pdf of multiple choice questions online that we have to discuss and answer. we take a few min to answer them and then "go over" the answers aka students go through their thought process before moving on to the next set of questions. many of the questions dont have a true answer and most of the time a physician isnt even present. The worst part is just the amount of time im in class, if they want a flipped classroom i need more time to do the independent work. Hell our CBL, which is obvously case based, doesnt even have answers; our facilitator just says "i dont know, you have to tell me" whenever we have questions.

I am transitioning to a life of B&B/Pathoma/Sketchy + Anking, wish me luck. I do not know how to use anki so this should be interesting lol.

 

[mvenus929]

Our TBL is actually not even cases, they put a pdf of multiple choice questions online that we have to discuss and answer. we take a few min to answer them and then "go over" the answers aka students go through their thought process before moving on to the next set of questions. many of the questions dont have a true answer and most of the time a physician isnt even present. The worst part is just the amount of time im in class, if they want a flipped classroom i need more time to do the independent work. Hell our CBL, which is obvously case based, doesnt even have answers; our facilitator just says "i dont know, you have to tell me" whenever we have questions.

I am transitioning to a life of B&B/Pathoma/Sketchy + Anking, wish me luck. I do not know how to use anki so this should be interesting lol.

Not that it helps you, but this is not what a TBL is supposed to be. There isn't necessary an absolutely 'right' answer for the questions, but there should be a 'best' answer and a rationale for why that is better than the other options, but it is supposed to create discussion. And CBL should have a facilitator's guide to help direct if it's a true case-based scenario, though true PBL is intended to have you come up with your own questions and is much harder than getting lectures.

 

[FutureSurgical]

Damn what it should be is that you have lectures during the first half of the block and THEN go to TBLs. That's how my school does it and it really hones in on the little details I missed/skimmed over. And sure enough, that material we went over was on the test.

What I would do is stated above: BnB/Pathoma/Sketchy + pre-made decks. Unpopular opinion: for concept heavy material (physiology for example,) I'll make my own cards. I cannot work with 20+ cards with multiple cloze deletions that talk about one part of a pathway. I need to incorporate all of that material and know how to apply it. However, 80% of the cards I do is AnKing.

 

[Styrene]

So im two months into a flipped classroom curriculum and I am straight up not having a good time. As much as id love to complain about it (and gladly will in separate posts most likely), i cant change the curriculum and just need to adapt. I am really struggling with studying and managing my time. We usually have about 7-8 hours of videos to watch/documents to read for the week and have mandatory TBL/CBL 9-4 T-R with quizzes on fridays. We also always have a few hours of in person presentations of some kind/mandatory activities on mondays. AKA the only unadultured days I have are saturday and sunday but even if i just did my first pass in a day id only have one day to do a second. I really hate teaching myself and miss class so i find myself not waching the videos during the weekend and then dying during the week. im constantly exhausted and my grades are poor. By the time I get home during the week its after 4pm/5pm and by the time I make dinner and walk the dog i just want to go to bed. Any advice from people who are in a flipped classroom curriculum?

My school had a flipped classroom for about 75% of stuff. I loved it because I learned so much, but it was hard. My friend and I would study in the library until midnight, teaching ourselves from ppt (rapid anki style) and then mastering all TBL practice questions. Show up at 8am for groups, finish by around 2pm-5pm. Then study in library until midnight. Rinse and repeat. Did a few months straight like this. Very thankful for it. I still remember some of the cases. I hate traditional classes, though.

So in short, it can be way more work, but the payoff is exponential.

 

[sloop]

As others have mentioned, your TBL experience is not actual TBL and sounds completely stupid.

That being said, I hate to say it but this mostly seems like a time management issue mixed with not being used to the amount of time that med school often requires. It may be that you either need to dedicate a full day of your weekend to studying or commit to your day routinely going from 7 or 8 AM to 7 or 8 PM, or both. I think that part of the problem here is that you seem to expect to be able to go through med school with a 9AM to 4 PM schedule and do well. I’m just not sure that was realistic. I know that I was studying way more than that during the first two years.

Maybe I’m misreading your post, though. What does your weekly schedule actually look like? To me it seemed like you had a few hours of lecture on Mondays, mandatory activities from 9-4 Tuesday through Thursday, and quizzes on Fridays. What are you doing the rest of the day on Mondays and Fridays after the quizzes? What are you doing after you get home from class on Tuesday through Friday? You make it sound like you generally crash and do nothing. You made comments about it being possible to study on the weekends but also mentioned that you wind up not watching videos on weekends and struggle during the week. Are you actually studying on the weekends? I don’t mean to be harsh, but I’m wondering if the answer here isn’t simply that you’re not studying enough.

I get that school can be draining but something is wrong if you feel like you just can’t do any more studying after 4-5 PM. I think you need to figure out what this barrier is. That is a ton of time during the day that you’re just writing off as not usable for studying. Why can’t you just give yourself 45 minutes to an hour for dinner, walk the dog, and then do a few more hours of studying. If it’s just difficult to get yourself to do more work after coming home from school, maybe you need to go to bed by like 10 PM and wake up at 5 AM to go study in the library before class.

 

[parscompacta56]

As others have mentioned, your TBL experience is not actual TBL and sounds completely stupid.

That being said, I hate to say it but this mostly seems like a time management issue mixed with not being used to the amount of time that med school often requires. It may be that you either need to dedicate a full day of your weekend to studying or commit to your day routinely going from 7 or 8 AM to 7 or 8 PM, or both. I think that part of the problem here is that you seem to expect to be able to go through med school with a 9AM to 4 PM schedule and do well. I’m just not sure that was realistic. I know that I was studying way more than that during the first two years. During undergrad I would arrive on campus at 8am and leave at 8pm basically every single day, sometimes later if needed either studying by myself or with friends.

Maybe I’m misreading your post, though. What does your weekly schedule actually look like? To me it seemed like you had a few hours of lecture on Mondays, mandatory activities from 9-4 Tuesday through Thursday, and quizzes on Fridays. What are you doing the rest of the day on Mondays and Fridays after the quizzes? What are you doing after you get home from class on Tuesday through Friday? You make it sound like you generally crash and do nothing. You made comments about it being possible to study on the weekends but also mentioned that you wind up not watching videos on weekends and struggle during the week. Are you actually studying on the weekends? I don’t mean to be harsh, but I’m wondering if the answer here isn’t simply that you’re not studying enough.

I get that school can be draining but something is wrong if you feel like you just can’t do any more studying after 4-5 PM. I think you need to figure out what this barrier is. That is a ton of time during the day that you’re just writing off as not usable for studying. Why can’t you just give yourself 45 minutes to an hour for dinner, walk the dog, and then do a few more hours of studying. If it’s just difficult to get yourself to do more work after coming home from school, maybe you need to go to bed by like 10 PM and wake up at 5 AM to go study in the library before class.

Oh no, I absolutely do use that time now, I just wasnt a happy camper for most of it and definitely was not using time efficiently at the start cause I was just floored by both the amount of material and the adjustment to flipped classroom. I got in my own head, have vented my frustrations to trusted people, and am generally in a better headspace now than I was a month ago. Neither my school nor I had been meeting the expectations I had set for what med school would be like and I now moving forward knowing that while I cant change my curriculum I can do better in how I prepare myself and handle this for the next two years.

My point in posting the 9-4 schedule was that i have to spend 25ish hours a week neither watching lectures/being lectured OR independent studying. Even the friday quizzes turn into 2.5 hour sessions because we have to do multiple activities, not just our quiz.

In comparison to non flipped optional lecture curriculums where i could wake up in the morning and either go to lecture or stay home and study, I have to go to mandatory sessions that dont help me and then my independent work starts at 5pm instead of 8 or 9am for most of the week. I would love to sit home and study 8am-8pm or go and be lectured 8am-noon and then study said lecture noon to 8pm but instead many of those hours are spent in CBL/PBL/TBL which I personally and subjectively (and maybe objectively) do not find effective. Then on the weekends i have to spend most of it doing first pass of the lectures im not getting during the week instead of cumulative review of the previous week or prestudying the next weeks lecture.

Basically i feel like flipped classroom has turned a huge chunk of my week into a black hole, leaving me with only the weekends and weeknights to get done what i need to. I talk to friends at other schools who either get to go to lecture and then study when they get home or just barely have to show up until their quizzes on fridays (if they even have them) and feel like they have so much more time than me. I feel like 5-8 hours of CBL/PBL/TBL with optional lectures is the sweet spot and we are wayyyyy past that lol. Doesn't help that my school materials are usually lackluster but thats what third party resources are for i suppose!