• education, methods
• teaching

A few months ago, I decided to brush up on my medical pedagogy skills by attending a workshop on the ‘flipped classroom’, a method I'd heard increasingly about over the past year or so, but which remained mysterious to this ‘older’ teacher. In what turned out to be a 2-hour lecture, I learned that, in a ‘flipped classroom’ students read (or watch) the material before class, and then the teacher facilitates a discussion in the classroom. I was crushed! Other than perhaps the multimedia homework, the flipped classroom of 2015 largely resembled my antediluvian high school English class—in which we were told: ‘read the book, and be prepared to discuss it’.

In their EMJ publication, Davies, Cheema and Carley1 introduce the concept of Conference 2.0, a learner-centred professional meeting that incorporates new education delivery styles, is tailored to the individual needs of the learner, and which recognises that teaching skills are as important as expertise. A key element of Conference 2.0 is the need for entertaining and applaud stimulating speakers, who create ‘medutainment’. Additionally, the authors point to innovative formats that simulate a television game show, or team skill contests with bellicose titles …