Nurse Educator Tips for Teaching

Dr. Shira Birnbaum describes a full-semester writing course she developed and strategies for improving student writing. Students identify problems in early drafts of their work, which they subsequently learn to resolve. She emphasizes that writing, like clinical learning, requires an investment of time and labor far beyond what is typical in didactic approaches to classroom-based graduate education. Students reflect on their learning in the accompanying article. 

High-quality video productions integrating 360° simulations of real-life nursing scenarios have shown promise in enriching learning experiences and refining students’ competencies, attitudes, and knowledge. Dr. Patrícia Freire de Vasconcelos describes the development of a 360° video simulation scenario for teaching medication safety in nursing. The methodological framework comprised 3 key stages: (1) crafting the script; (2) evaluating the script’s validity by expert judges in medication administration; and (3) developing the set, filming scenes, and refining the video using a 360° camera. The 360° video was tailored for utilization with virtual reality glasses, rendering it accessible for integration into nursing education curricula. The final version consisted of a continuous scene that ended with a question that prompted the identification of errors.

Learn more in their article.

Adjunct clinical faculty play a vital role in ensuring an adequate number of instructors for nursing students. Dr. Bryce Catarelli and Professor Karen Schofield describe a clinical bingo game they developed for first-semester nursing students and clinical faculty to serve as a guide for the hospital experience. Each space on the bingo card is a skill practiced in laboratory/simulation or an action that is appropriate for students' ability and level of education. Each skill is signed off on completion, creating a log of skills/actions performed by the student. Their article provides additional details about their bingo game.

In this podcast, Dr. Kaitlyn Kolcun and Dr. Kelly Sullivan explain their rationale and process for transforming traditional prebriefing and debriefing experiences for a virtual-reality simulation to an online asynchronous format. Learn more about how they developed and implemented asynchronous prebriefing and debriefing activities and assessed student learning outcomes. Drs. Kolcun and Sullivan also describe the interesting subjective feedback students provided about the asynchronous virtual simulation experience.

Read more about this in their teaching tip.

Nursing students’ perceived usability toward a technology application affects their learning experience. Few studies have investigated immersive virtual reality (IVR) simulation for learning fundamental nursing skills. Dr. Wong and her research team explored the usability of IVR simulations with first-year nursing students and their perspectives on this learning modality. In this podcast and article (which is Open Access), Dr. Wong describes their mixed-methods study using surveys and focus groups. The findings demonstrated students’ positive inclinations toward IVR simulation learning. Two areas emerged: using IVR simulation as a complementary modality for learning fundamental nursing skills and barriers affecting students’ usability of this technology. By addressing concerns about usability, IVR simulation can be an important complementary modality for skills learning.

Read the article and share with colleagues.

Although the numbers of nurses from historically underrepresented ethnic and racial populations are increasing in the workforce, the distribution of nurses in the US is still not representative of the population. In this podcast and article, Dr. Joanne Noone and Ms. Adriana Valenzuela Martinez present their program that improved the underrepresented nursing student population from 11% to 33%.

Dr. Erika Janssen and Dr. Lindsay Morgan explain the Dunning-Kruger effect and how it influences self-assessment of cultural competence in nursing students. Their research revealed that students with no direct care experience in LGBTQ+ communities were more confident in their communication skills and culturally congruent care than those who had been exposed to sexual minorities in clinical settings. In this podcast, learn more about how knowledge of the Dunning-Kruger effect can help nurse educators continuously improve curricula and guide students to develop greater self-awareness of gaps in competency in delivering culturally congruent care.

Learn more about this research in their article.

In this podcast, Dr. Karen Mihelich describes the impetus behind development and implementation of experiential education focused on food insecurity in her local community. She integrated community-engaged service, implicit bias education, teamwork and communication, budget management, and essential DNP competencies into a community-engaged practicum and service project. Listen to her story and learn how her students and community partners responded, and find out how she and her students and colleagues sustained this community project.

Dr. Mihelich provides more details in her article.

Exposure to workplace violence (WPV) is common in health care, and little is known about nurse practitioner (NP) students’ experiences during their graduate nursing clinical education. In this podcast, Drs. Kristin Gigli and John Gonzalez describe the findings from their study on WPV experienced by NP students. A total of 334 NPs responded. More than a quarter (27%) of these students experienced WPV during their graduate program: preceptors were the most reported perpetrators (44%). In this podcast, the authors describe relevant federal policies and share strategies that schools of nursing can use to reduce student exposure to WPV.

Read the full study in their article.

Faculty in a Family Nurse Practitioner program integrated entrustable professional activities (EPAs) that aligned with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essentials and National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties Core NP Competencies into their clinical assessment tool. Student performance expectations at different points in the program were outlined. Students documented each time they performed an EPA during clinical experiences. Drs. Angel Anthamatten and Courtney Pitts discuss this initiative and outcomes in the podcast.

Read the full article (it is open access).