Flipping a collaborative classroom to gain deeper understanding of the Health System

The Health Systems and Policy course provides a broad introduction and overview of the Australian health system but has had to overcome the challenge that many students anticipate a dry and boring course of limited relevance or interest. We decided to take a different and more integrated approach that would foster deeper learning through the introduction of collaborative processes that placed students at the centre of class discussions. Learning objectives, teaching activities and assessment were realigned, and activities were developed to establish foundational knowledge outside the classroom that would inform and support discussion, reflection, engagement and debate within the classroom. The following chapter maps our teaching team’s journey through the redevelopment of The Health Systems and Policy course. The chapter is divided into four sections. The first describes what we did, the second outlines how we did it, and the third reflects on our experiences. Some members of the teaching team maintained regular diaries of the semester; these reflections inform section three. In the final section, we briefly discuss some ‘next steps’.