Nurse Educator Tips for Teaching

Empathetic communication is a cornerstone of high-quality, patient-centered nursing care, especially in palliative end-of-life situations. Students report anxiety and uncertainty with having difficult conversations with patients in both the simulated and clinical setting. A Choose your Own Adventure Game allows students to explore different approaches to communication, receive immediate feedback, and experience the true impact of their words on patient outcomes. In this podcast and article, Judith Caroline Quick describes this approach and how it builds confidence in  students, allowing them to practice without judgment before communicating with patients in the clinical setting.

Many faculty teaching in DNP programs lack preparation for guiding DNP student scholarship. A large multicampus college of nursing invested in an interdisciplinary DNP faculty development retreat to increase faculty scholarship and strengthen their ability to mentor DNP student projects. Positive outcomes of the retreat included participants' improved confidence in implementing evidence-based practice quality improvement (EBPQI) methods and an increase in DNP student and faculty publications. In this podcast and article, Drs. Jayne Dunlap and Julee Waldrop describe the retreat and include resources for readers to use in their own programs. They also explain the Mountain Model for EBPQI, which presents a new evidence-searching question as an alternative to the PICO. Their article is open access. Share their article widely with faculty teaching in your DNP program, with your students, and with other educators and clinicians.

Integrating night shift clinical experiences into nursing programs offers unique benefits, fostering essential skills often overlooked during daytime clinicals. For faculty considering this integration, the slower pace and distinct dynamics of night shifts provide diversity for professional growth opportunities among students. This podcast with Dr. Vanessa Segura presents a high-impact teaching strategy that helps students assess, plan, implement, and evaluate care in patients during the night shift. The podcast focuses on a comparison between day shift and night shift learning. Learn more about these experiences in Dr. Segura's Teaching Tip.

Practice-based learning is essential in nurse practitioner (NP) education; however, lack of clinical placement opportunities results in variability in clinical experience. Dr. Erin Ziegler and her team developed 4 virtual simulations (VS) covering concussion management, medical assistance in dying, memory concerns in older adults, and prescribing medical cannabis and evaluated their usability, engagement, and impact across 3 Canadian universities. Students' competencies improved significantly for all of the VS, with highest improvement in concussion management. Scores on the Classroom Instructional Support Perception indicated high usability and engagement with the VS, underscoring their effectiveness. Read more about the development of these VS in their Article.

Student development of communication skills is essential for professional practice. To address this, a structured peer review process was implemented in a beginning nursing course, providing students with opportunities to engage in scholarly discourse, refine their writing, and practice crucial conversations in a supportive environment. The teaching strategy involved 3 peer reviews throughout the semester. In this podcast and article, Dr. Kristen Tobin and Christina Buxton explain how they structured the peer review process across the semester and its impact on students' communication skills and confidence.

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) engage learners at lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. In this podcast, Dr. Andrew Richards and Mr. Zachary Hall discuss how they developed a CAT known as the Five-Minute Peer Writing Activity to promote engagement at a higher level among students in the classroom setting. Read more about this innovative, interprofessional strategy in their article in Nurse Educator.

Evidence-based guidelines about textbook selection in nursing are lacking. Lucille Downing discussed their study to identify the essential characteristics in nursing textbooks based on a survey of faculty members across the United States.Faculty had a strong preference for textbooks emphasizing clinical judgment and application to practice, with content being the top priority. Additionally, instructor resources, such as test banks and teaching strategies, were prioritized within supplemental resources. Few participants reported formal training in textbook selection. Details about the study are provided in their article.

An unfolding case study for a complex concept such as chronic pain management can be scaffolded across a curriculum to better prepare future nurses for practice. This podcast with Dr. Kari Firestone presents a 4-term unfolding case study that was developed to address gaps in students' learning. It was aligned with the American Association of College of Nursing Essentials and followed a patient from acute to chronic pain transition. Details are provided in their article.

Are your students unclear about the purpose of evidence-based practice (EBP) and need to learn this content? Listen to this podcast with Dr. Cassandra Ford and read her article. She developed a strategy to help students connect EBP to other nursing courses: the Course Connection Table. She shares the Course Connection Table with readers.

Nurse educators often face challenges in highlighting the clinical relevance of evidence-based practice (EBP) and quality improvement (QI) in undergraduate nursing courses. To address this, faculty collaborated with clinical partners to create a novel strategy aimed at bridging the gap between classroom learning and clinical application. Students used unit-based report cards for a fictional hospital, EBP General Hospital, modeled after real-world trends in patient outcomes established within the partnering academic hospital. Report cards were created for distinct units and emphasized trends of nurse-sensitive indicators. Bryce Catarelli, Jamie Dees, and Akela Edwards describe this teaching strategy in this podcast and article.

 Critical care nurse practitioners have few opportunities to care for obstetric patients in the critical care setting and, therefore, may lack competence and confidence in caring for them. In this podcast, Jennifer Brower and Caitlin Luebcke describe their work and insights from an integration of obstetric-focused, multimodal instruction in an acute care nurse practitioner program. They share more details about their strategies for integration of a critical care obstetric curriculum in a nurse practitioner program and describe the challenges and opportunities they experienced in their article.

Fostering a sense of belonging in the classroom is important for student engagement. An impactful way to build this sense of belonging is by opening class with a student-created slideshow. Students contribute a single PowerPoint slide featuring something that bring them joy, such as photos of family, friends, pets, hobbies, or favorite quotes. The educator then compiles these slides into a continuous presentation that plays as students arrive to class. By including each student's unique perspective, the classroom atmosphere becomes more inclusive. Supplemental Digital Content with the article includes contributions from both an educator and a student.

Individual simulation allows students to think critically, perform nursing care, and intervene on abnormal findings, while simultaneously allowing faculty to provide appropriate coaching. Faculty developed 2 formative, individual, simulation activities incorporating multiple practice opportunities over time, clinical coaching, meaningful feedback, and reflection to enhance clinical reasoning and judgment development. The authors describe these individualized simulations and their outcomes in the podcast and article.

Unique features of RN-Baccalaureate programs can make implementation of the AACN Essentials more challenging. In this podcast, you'll learn about findings from a needs assessment conducted by members of the National RN-Baccalaureate (RN-B) Faculty Forum. They explain some of the major challenges RN-B programs face related to the Essentials, and they describe resources such as a curricular mapping tool and checklist that RN-B educators can use to facilitate program alignment with AACN Essentials. Access more information and their resources in their Nurse Educator article.

Nursing clinical judgment is a concept that resonates with nurse educators. This topic coincides with the National Council of State Board of Nursing clinical judgment model, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Essentials, state boards of nursing, and employer and public importance. As such, it is vital to incorporate clinical judgment into nursing education. This podcast with Dr. Sara Lewandowski presents an engaging and active learning experience to promote effective assessment and critical thinking skills in students. You can read more about this strategy in her article.

Nursing faculty vacancies reduce the numbers of students entering the nursing profession, exacerbating the health care workforce crisis. Resilience, known to mitigate occupational burnout, may play a role in retaining existing prelicensure nursing faculty. Dr. Hope Jones describes their study on faculty resilience. They found that compassion satisfaction and  perceived support were significant predictors of resilience. Dr. Jones shares implications for schools of nursing. More details are shared in their article.

Drs. Cori Heier and Ashley McMath share their active learning strategy to prepare students for applying for their first job. The strategy has 3 components: resume building by analyzing 5 de-identified RN resumes, critiquing them in small groups, and creating their own resumes; analysis of 4 pictures of people dressed in various attires for their nursing job interview; and a interview “speed dating” session. Learn more in their article.

To prepare the next generation of nurses with strong skills in self-care to enhance their well-being and increase resilience, strategies for self-care practices should be introduced in the undergraduate program. In this podcast, Drs. Ludy Llasus and Patricia Nill discuss an in-class activity that creates space for students to write a self-care prescription to cultivate personal and professional resilience, focusing on fostering their well-being. Learn about this strategy in their teaching tip.

Guided by the tenets of Kolcaba's holistic comfort theory, Dr. April Braswell explains how they developed, implemented, and evaluated a simulated online pediatric advanced practice health center. The Pediatric Comfy Care Clinic (PCCC) was created to enhance person-centered diagnostic reasoning and holistic advanced management skills for family nurse practitioner students. Learn more about the PCCC in their article.

Learn how a nurse educator and a teaching and learning librarian at Western Washington University created an innovative approach to teaching digital information literacy. In this podcast, Emily Spracklin and Christine Espina used professional fact-checker strategies, a reflection notebook, and an information literacy framework to develop student competency in information evaluation skills. Read their article for more details about how they teach students to sift credible information from a myriad of online sources and engage in patient-centered communication and education.

Interprofessional education (IPE) is important for health professions students, but advanced practice nursing students often lack opportunities to practice interprofessional care in ambulatory scenarios. A team of health professions educators designed an interprofessional simulation focused on the ambulatory care setting and implemented it with health science students at a large midwestern university. Family and psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner students, along with students from undergraduate nursing, medicine, pharmacy, audiology, dental hygiene, social work, and physical therapy, participated in the virtual interprofessional simulation. In this podcast, Dr. Lisa Rohrig describes the simulation, its development, and the outcomes. The authors provide more detail in their article.    

Are you using video announcements in your online courses? If not, listen to this podcast with Dr. Darci McCall and read her article. Video announcements are an effective way to enhance connection and improve the learner's experience in an online course. Unlike text-based communication, these humanize the instructor, bringing presence and authenticity to the virtual classroom. Incorporating video announcements into a course is a simple but valuable addition. By strengthening instructor presence and communication, this strategy transforms online learning, creating a supportive and engaging environment that enhances student satisfaction and success.

Learn how one prelicensure course in community and population health helps students develop empathy in marginalized populations and practice trauma-informed care with all patients. Dr. Jennifer Forbush describes a collaboration with local teachers to facilitate social and emotional learning in at-risk highschoolers. Find out more about her teaching strategy in her Nurse Educator article.

Feedback alone does not satisfy the need for structured debriefing, which is part of good simulation. In this podcast, Ashley McMath explains how she used Socratic questioning during debriefing to help students uncover their thinking behind their actions and foster an environment of open dialogue and reflection. Read more about the debriefing strategy in her article Nurse Educator.

In this podcast and article, Dr. Megan Jester describes an innovative learning activity in which  students share photographs (taken as part of class) that represent the mental health continuum. The activity begins with a faculty-led lecture introducing the mental health continuum. In groups, students walk around campus, taking photos of objects that reflect the continuum. Groups then create and share a PowerPoint slide featuring their selected object and write a social media statement. Dr. Jester explains how this activity can be adapted for other courses including those offered online.

Drs. Pamela Miller and Theresa Marcotte designed an in-class exercise to help students understand the differences between an article summary and a synthesis of information from several articles. Using a PICOT question, students perform a critical analysis of specific content in 3 journal articles. This activity is a competency-based strategy that could be employed in entry-level and graduate courses.

The transition from clinical practice to graduate studies can be daunting to some practicing nurses. It is well documented that graduate nursing students lack academic preparation for rigorous scholarly work. Drs. Kimberly Douglas and Edmund Pajarillo describe a national onboarding consortium of graduate nursing faculty that uses a model onboarding program to address graduate students' academic preparedness. The program is easily adopted to support students from various backgrounds and regions within the United States. The onboarding program was evaluated initially in a pilot study, which became the foundation for the national program to be customizable. You can learn more about the program and national consortium in their article.  

Did you know that 17% of individuals in the US live with substance use disorder (SUD)? Nursing curricula may not adequately address SUD, and stigma can impact patients' care. Their project measured stigma toward people with SUD among prelicensure nursing students. Students with personal experience had lower stigma scores than those without this experience. In this podcast, Drs. Jennifer Crook and Sarah Febres-Cordero explain the importance of preparing students to care for patients with SUD and how to do this in the curriculum. Learn more about this project and strategies you can use in your own programs. You can read the full article (it is open access): share with colleagues!

This podcast with Drs. Leslie Lopez and Melissa Nunn presents a learner-led clinical simulation to improve communication-specific developmental screening skills of nurse practitioner students. The simulation prepares students to care diverse patients with an emphasis on the pediatric population.

Transitioning current curriculum to the 2021 AACN Essentials, or redesigning curriculum to align with the competency-based Essentials, can be challenging. A group of nurse educators created a crosswalk between the QSEN graduate competency statements and the Essentials to support this transition. Learn more in this podcast and their article about how you can access their crosswalk tool that shows an increase in complexity of expectations for contemporary nursing practice.

Teaching nursing students how to conduct a human-centered design project fosters their creative self-efficacy and cultivates design thinking.  In this podcast, Dr. Jeana Holt describes how she implemented experiential learning based on a human-centered design approach to solving patient care problems. More details about her project and future directions for work in human-centered design are explained in her article.

A tabletop simulation, called Triage Tabletop, was developed by Dr. Laura Liggett and Brandi Snow to offer acute care nurse practitioner (NP) students an opportunity to experience clinical decision-making when triaging patients in the hospital setting. They join us in this podcast to explain this teaching strategy. During an on-campus clinical immersion, students were divided into groups of 4 to 5 each to act as rounding hospitalist NPs with a census of 8 patients. The students worked together to determine the order in which they would visit their patients based on acuity while keeping other responsibilities in mind, such as attending scheduled interdisciplinary rounds. The students also received unexpected pages about changes in patients' conditions. Interested in developing this triage tabletop simulation? Read more about this sim in their teaching tip.

Nurses play a critical role in reducing health inequities in people experiencing homelessness (PEH), a key social determinant of health. The authors developed and validated competencies; associated knowledge, skills, and attitudes; and concepts, content, and learning activities to serve as an educational framework in providing care for PEH. Learn more about these competencies in this podcast with Rachel Richmond, Joanne Noone, Heather Voss, Aina Hale, and Marilyn Gran-Moravec. Be sure to read their article and visit their website with learning activities and resources you can use in your courses.

Interprofessional team training (IPTT) prepares students from health care professions for team-based care. In this podcast with Dr. Allison Shorten, you will learn why IPTT is important. In their study with 866 students from 11 professions, they compared in-person and online delivery of IPTT: both groups improved, but the in-person delivery resulted in the greatest improvement. However, as Dr. Shorten explains, advantages from in-person delivery should be weighed against online logistical advantages. You can find more detail about the study in their article.   

With the explosion of artificial intelligence (AI), nurse educators are harnessing its impact in education. The most recent trend of AI usage has been with lecture slides. In this podcast, Dr. DeAnna Gapp explains how she uses AI to facilitate her work as a faculty member and presents strategies for using AI in preparing lectures. More examples are provided in Dr. Gapp's teaching tip.

In this podcast, Dr. Chelsea Mellett explains the relationships among professional identity, hope, and job satisfaction. Improving nurses' professional identity can lead to higher job satisfaction and ultimately reduce nurse turnover. Learn about their study on the intersections between career motivation, professional identity formation, and belongingness in prelicensure nursing students and strategies you can use to improve students' professional identity formation.

Allowing students to select from a variety of assessment strategies gives them an opportunity to create their own learning environment and choose their preferred pathway to academic success. Listen to this podcast to learn how Lisa Brennan used the VARK (visual, auditory, reading/writing/kinesthetic) framework to foster a sense agency to students in the assessment process. Read her article describing how you can use a similar strategy approach to assessment, or view her video if you prefer to engage with content visually.

Nurse Educator is celebrating its 50th year of publishing articles addressing faculty and students' teaching and learning needs. This podcast presents the increasing need for males to select nursing as a profession from the personal perspective of Dr. Harrell Jordan, Dean, School of Nursing, Chamberlain University. Dr. Jordan discusses his experiences as a male in nursing and the continued need to recruit more males, including males of color, into the profession.

Nursing students are at risk for developing secondary traumatic stress (STS) while completing their clinical training. Kristen Oakley synthesized the research on the prevalence, severity, and experience of STS and its associated factors in prelicensure nursing students. Findings from their review of 25 studies revealed a range of STS symptom severity levels and associated factors; however, measurement is hampered by researchers' use of other concepts, like compassion fatigue.  

Dr. Curry Bordelon describes the integration of AI into a graduate nursing informatics course. Students used AI in each of the modules of the course.

Nursing students often have online experiences and various media interests that may influence their learning experience. Digital audio technology, such as podcasts, can be used as an adjunct to traditional teaching strategies to incorporate a variety of learning mediums. Faculty may produce podcasts or use artificial intelligence (AI). In this podcast and article, Dr. April Folgert and Kerry DeGroot present an engaging learning activity using AI to promote critical thinking.  

Guidelines on how to sustain the outcomes of simulation training and evaluate training programs are limited. Dr. Jane Paige describes their study of the impact of a professional development workshop for individuals responsible for developing, sustaining, and evaluating simulation educator training programs. They used a longitudinal exploratory design, guided by the New World Kirkpatrick Model. Significant changes in knowledge, confidence, and commitment were observed over time. This is a good example of sustaining the training of simulation leaders and educators through intentional processes that support, reinforce, monitor, and reward efforts.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to prepare health professions admissions applications is increasing. These tools can improve writing but raise ethical concerns about application authenticity. Drs. Jill Brennan-Cook and Stephanie Gedzyk-Nieman share the results of their scoping review on the use of AI by applicants applying to nursing and other health professions programs and by admission reviewers. AI tools can enhance the efficiency of the admissions review process, but clear guidelines are needed by schools to address ethical issues.

A school of nursing employed a nurse informaticist in its simulation laboratory to address the complexities of technology usage and aid in data analytics. Mr. Eric Hall describes his role as an informaticist in the simulation setting. Eric and Dr. Jo Ellen Holt share benefits and outcomes of this new role in simulation. Read more in their article. 

When nurse educators foster a growth mindset, they help students understand that mindset and attitudes are developed through dedication and practice, rather than fixed traits. One strategy to address this challenge is to modify our language to use words that foster continuous growth. In assessments where students are at the practice level, the terminology of pass or fail can be replaced with pass or practice. By using this terminology, students view practice as a constructive avenue for growth instead of inadequacy. In this podcast and teaching tip, Dr. Alison Hamner discusses how she promotes growth mindset in her courses.  

Faculty workload models related to DNP projects have not kept pace with increasing enrollment and program expectations. Dr. Sara Hubbell explains a new faculty workload that was developed related to DNP projects to reflect a more equitable and realistic model. The faculty developed the Collaborative Section-Based Faculty Workload Model that resulted in increases in faculty satisfaction, retention, and student mentorship, while maintaining DNP project rigor. You can learn more about this new Workload Model in their article.

Unfolding case studies help students apply their knowledge to real life patient scenarios. Traditional methods of presenting case studies in asynchronous online courses often include using written or video discussion boards, which require waiting for instructor feedback. This podcast with Dr. Michelle Neuman presents an innovative strategy to engage students in critical thinking and problem-solving activities using unfolding case studies in an asynchronous online learning environment. You can learn more about this strategy in her article.

For many undergraduate nursing students (64%), burnout begins during their educational program. Resilience is a known protective factor to buffer against stress exposure that leads to burnout, but a lack of formal resilience training for undergraduate nursing students persists. Equine-assisted learning interventions promote resilience and decrease stress and burnout in a diversity of populations. In this podcast (and article), Dr. Shannon Burleson describes an equine-assisted learning intervention to reduce students' stress in school and practice after graduation.

Moral distress is a phenomenon with known negative effects for health care professionals, including nurses. Moral distress is thought to occur when an individual knows the morally right thing to do but is unable to do it, based on internal and external constraints. This podcast with Dr. Kathy Forte (and their article) presents a simulation experience for prelicensure students to help them experience a real-life ethical scenario from an ethical perspective.

Dr. Lisa Bailey and Ms. Jourdan Scoggins explain the core idea behind the “Declare Yourself” leadership process and how it builds trust between students and educators. They use the “Declare Yourself” process in their clinical courses and share their experiences. Learn more about this strategy and how you can use it in your courses in this podcast and article.  

Health inequities across the United States, particularly in rural and medically underserved communities, are fueled by disparities in education, poverty, and social determinants. The shortage of accessible primary care providers exacerbates health inequities, leading to adverse outcomes and perpetuating disparities. Drs. Jannyse Tapp and Shannon Cole discuss a partnership model to prepare nurse practitioners to reduce health disparities in rural underserved communities. Read their article (it is Open Access) and share it with your colleagues.