Nurse Educator Tips for Teaching

Effective nurse-physician communication is essential for patient safety and care coordination. Communication failures are a leading contributor to sentinel events, highlighting the need for interprofessional communication training in healthcare education. Yet many nursing and medical students have limited opportunities to practice structured, real-time communication with future colleagues. This podcast presents a simulation experience that integrates a school of nursing and a medical school to help students embrace interprofessional communication.

Advanced practice nursing programs face a critical shortage of preceptors to guide the translation of education to clinical practice. Preceptors face barriers to mentoring students, including inadequate training and orientation, and a lack of benefits and time. This podcast with Dr. Kala Christopherson and article present the results of a study for improving the education, retention, professional development, and recognition of preceptors within the Portal to Precept Model. The Model focuses on academic-practice partnerships and can be applied to all levels of nursing education.

Nurse educators are critical in advancing evidence-based practice (EBP) in academic and clinical settings. However, limited research exists on how doctoral education influences their EBP beliefs and implementation behaviors. Dr. Tara O'Brien discusses their study that evaluated changes in EBP beliefs and implementation among Doctor of Nursing Education students over time. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on nurse educators, not only students and clinicians, when it comes to EBP. You can read the full study here.

Enhancing graduate students' scholarly writing skills remains a consistent challenge in nursing education. While generative artificial intelligence (AI) offers promising support, faculty often wonder how to guide students in using these tools effectively and ethically. One successful strategy used in an entry-level graduate nursing course involved creating a customized GPT-based virtual writing tutor. Unlike standard, open-ended generative AI chats, this personalized GPT was intentionally programmed by faculty to align with course expectations. The tool was embedded with the assignment rubric, faculty-preferred writing standards, and clear guidelines for its interaction with students. This podcast with Dr. Crystal Paunan discusses how ChatGPT can be used to promote scholarly writing.

Nurse educators seek teaching methods and modalities that effectively prepare nursing students for practice in the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains of learning. One tool is virtual reality simulation. Virtual reality simulation is an interactive, immersive technology that replicates real-world clinical scenarios for users. In this podcast, faculty discuss the results of a research study comparing students' perception of learning and psychological safety in virtual reality and live simulation experiences.

New graduate nurses often lack the skills necessary to care for clients at the end of life. Essential to designing an end-of-life course is awareness of the potential psychological impact of the content and providing students with appropriate support resources. An online, asynchronous end-of-life course was integrated into an undergraduate nursing curriculum. Weekly modules provided specific wellness tips that encouraged students to use them in caring for their clients and supporting their own well-being.

Intensifying demands on nurses have led to burnout and workforce instability. Dr. Stubin describes her study that examined nursing alumni perceptions of how effectively their undergraduate curriculum prepared them to manage workplace burnout. She conducted focus group sessions with 55 alumni, all of whom had less than 5 years of experience as registered nurses. Participant responses included feeling overwhelmed and emotional shock during transition, inadequate preparation for managing burnout and mental health challenges, and desire for institutional change. Dr. Stubin share strategies to build into the curriculum to enhance retention, prevent early-career burnout, and foster a more sustainable nursing workforce.

You also might be interested in reading Dr. Stubin's earlier study: Promoting Nursing Student Mental Health Wellness: The Impact of Resilience-Building and Faculty Support

Inclusive education benefits all students, including neurodivergent and disabled learners, and reduces reliance on individually awarded accommodations. Dr. Megan Arbour provides a practical framework for embedding inclusive practices into nursing education. This framework integrates Transparency in Learning and Teaching, Universal Design for Learning, and Competency-Based Education. With this approach, the educator anticipates diverse learner needs, promotes access, and strengthens student success and workforce readiness. More details are provided in their article.

Death and dying within the broader scope of end-of-life care causes anxiety in most students. Escape rooms in an online learning environment enable engagement among participants in a safe environment. Students assess and implement nursing measures to provide comfort to patients and families at the end of life. This podcast with Drs. Rebecca Clark and Jodi Fry (and their article) showcases how students apply critical thinking, clinical reasoning, and collaboration through the simulation, and highlights the importance of reflection and debriefing.

Ask Me 3® was designed to empower patients to better understand their health, prompting patients to ask: What is my main problem? What do I need to do? Why is it important for me to do this? By flipping the framework, faculty created a tool nursing students can use to better understand complex content, guide their study habits, and enhance critical thinking. This podcast (and article) showcases how the Ask Me 3® Institute for Healthcare Improvement tool can be used in diverse contexts to promote critical thinking, clinical reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making through progressive reflection and engagement.