The online inverted classroom model (oICM). A blueprint to adapt the inverted classroom to an online learning setting in medical and health education

Abstract

The idea of this paper is to offer a blueprint, to guide educators setting up a complete digital teaching scenario according to the latest insights of educational research. The COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions all around the world to radically shift their curricula from a mix of face-to-face and remote teaching methods to a fully remote curriculum. Though challenging, this time provides opportunities to implement new educational methods and to improve the quality of digital teaching. The concept of the inverted classroom was modified to meet the special needs of the new online settings. The proposed online Inverted Classroom Model (oICM) includes the following phases: (1) pre-phase, (2) self-learning-phase, (3) synchronous online phase, (4) transfer-phase, and (5) evaluation. Recommendations and potential tools are provided for each phase. The oICM is an innovative and easy to use approach to shape digital teaching and learning processes during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This blueprint is developed by the committee “Digitalization” of the German Association for Medical Education (GMA), mainly for educators who are familiar with the Inverted Classroom Model (ICM) or similar blended learning formats.

Keywords

• inverted classroom
• flipped classroom
• oICM
• medical education
• health education
• digital teaching
• synchronous online teaching