Nurse Educator Tips for Teaching

In this podcast with Dr. Morgan Yordy, you will learn about her 2-hour elective course , titled Animal Assisted Therapy, that explores the human-animal bond, the roles of animals in communities, and their impact on health and wellness. The course is open to all majors and is especially popular among pre-health care students. One assignment of students is a field trip to a local farm, which provide...

Climate and planetary health shape the environments in which people live and, therefore, are central to nursing's mission to protect health and reduce inequities. Climate change drives heat-related illness, extreme weather, poor air quality, shifting infectious diseases, and food and water insecurity—all of which increase disease burden and disproportionately harm vulnerable populations. Nurses ar...

Neurodiversity is an umbrella term that describes a wide range of variation in cognition, learning, and behaviors. In this podcast and article , Drs. Cummings and Serembus share inclusive and engaging teaching strategies for neurodivergent students. The strategies incorporate principles of Universal Design for Learning, support social-emotional learning, and provide a sensory-friendly environment...

NurseKind AI ( nursekindai.com ) transcribes and analyzes real audio recordings of nursing student interactions and gives scored feedback on empathy, therapeutic communication, and clinical judgment in about 90 seconds. Simulation tools cover clinical knowledge through text-based scenarios. NurseKind AI covers the other side: how students actually talk to patients, whether they listen, and whether...

Dr. Sotos Djiovanis and Donna Ramos developed a series of AI-assisted formative assignments for in-class group learning in a health assessment course, guided by Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The goal was to develop learners' knowledge of course material and learn best practices for using AI generators to create study aids. The in-class work focused on written, pictorial, and video AI...

The educational experiences of current nursing students, shaped by unprecedented access to advanced technologies, have made face-to-face communication and therapeutic relationship-building more challenging. Drs. Nelson and Serratt describe their qualitative study on the effectiveness, usability, and trustworthiness of a generative AI tool in helping nursing students improve communication in emotio...

Dr. Cassie Moffitt created a private Instagram account where students can anonymously ask clarifying questions related to class content. Since most students already use Instagram, the platform was an accessible choice. Each day, the faculty member posts a story with a question box. Students submit questions anonymously, which are answered in the order received through follow-up stories. To ensure...

Ethical principles are difficult concepts for students to grasp. In this episode and article , Dr. Valerie Wright discusses an innovative strategy she developed using art as a means to engage students and promote active learning in a leadership course.  

The focus on self-care and self-advocacy in nursing is particularly significant for students in advanced practice nursing (APN) programs given the high rates of burnout among APNs. Drs. Davis, Lysaght, and Mullins designed and implemented coursework to prepare graduate nursing students in their APN program for the demands of clinical practice. One of their assignments used a 2-part interactive cas...

Compassionate care is essential for positive patient outcomes and nurse well-being. Current models are largely practice-focused and not integrated into a nursing curriculum. Thus, new nurses are often unprepared to deliver compassionate care. In this podcast and article , Dr. Lori Brodie discusses a strategy to nurture compassion as a professional identity.

Dr. Kelly Pruden shares her innovative " Build Your Dream Unit – Nurse Recruitment Challenge ," where students design an innovative clinical unit and then compete to recruit peers to work there. In this activity, small groups design a specialty unit (eg, ICU, Labor & Delivery, Medical-Surgical) incorporating evidence-based principles of healthy work environments, nurse well-being, and recruitment...

The Know, Want, Learn, Apply, and Question (KWLA+Q) strategy is an effective tool for fostering student engagement in online discussion threads. KWLA+Q not only enhances student participation and collaborative learning but also supports faculty in creating a responsive and dynamic online learning environment. Drs. Pascucci and Michaels describe the strategy and give examples of its use in online d...

Unconscious bias refers to attitudes and beliefs about certain people or groups of people that affect understanding, decisions, and actions. Early-semester nursing students are perfectly positioned to learn about unconscious bias and strategies to mitigate it. In the podcast and article , Dr. Natasha Morris shares a simple exercise she developed for students to highlight these biases. During a pos...

Dr. Deborah Sikes describes the Veteran to BSN Pathway initiative designed to help military veterans transition into professional nursing through a BSN program. The program builds on veterans' prior military training, healthcare experience, and leadership skills. She discusses how they evaluated and translated these into academic credit, advanced placement, and targeted support services.

Interruptions can increase risks for errors. The Stay SAFE interruption management strategy aims to mitigate errors. Dr. Ginger Schroers describes her multisite study to determine nursing students' interruption management behaviors before and at multiple assessments after learning Stay SAFE. Four study sites (and 60 students) were included. Data were collected over 10 months via direct observation...

Students and faculty at a large public university identified a gap in advanced practice nursing education and created a course focused on structural racism and its impact on health outcomes. In this podcast and article , Lisa Mihaly, Linda Stephan, Denisse Porter, Cara McGuinness, and Dr. Alicia Swartz explain the development of the course: Racism, Health Care, and Social Justice . The authors dis...

Transitioning to competency-based education in nursing simulation education requires a systematic approach to curriculum assessment.  Using the University's Online Simulation System, 2 experts selected American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) behavioral performance indicators that best matched behavioral outcomes associated with simulation student roles in 5 scenarios. In this podcast an...

Dr. Teresa Conklin discusses the shift toward competency-based education and shares strategies that graduate nursing educators can use to provide proficiency-centered experiences for NP students. In her article she describes the role of an Accessibility Committee to apply the  Americans with Disabilities Act standards to universal design of digital materials. 

Nursing education programs across the US continue to face ongoing shortages of nursing faculty. This study examined salary differences between nursing faculty and other nurses using 2022 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses data and identified specific factors contributing to these disparities. The adjusted annual salary of nursing faculty was $18 , 346 less than staff nurses, $19 , 863 les...

Research indicates that compassionate teaching (CT) positively correlates with professional quality of life among RN to BSN students and can enhance student resilience and well-being.   Faculty who integrate CT into the learning environment help students prepare for practice in stressful healthcare settings. In this podcast and article , Dr. Lisa Ruth-Sahd discusses the outcomes of a mixed-methods...

In today's technology-driven world, nurse educators face the challenge of creating engaging learning experiences. Using 360-degree camera technology, interactive videos were developed with academic, hospital, health department, and rehabilitation partners. In this podcast and article , Drs. Sue Owens, Lenna Westerkamp, Pam Smyth, and Shannon Love discuss this initiative and the impact of this tech...

Dr. Rebecca Davis describes the clinical evaluation tool that faculty developed to assess clinical competencies based on the AACN Essentials . The tool is structured as a developmental rubric, allowing documentation of each learner's progress toward independence in clinical practice. Faculty identified challenges, however, when assessing competency with a one-size-fits-all clinical evaluation tool...

First-semester nursing students often struggle to connect health assessment and skills lab content with clinical expectations. To bridge this gap, Dr.   Pendergraft-Horne and Cory Smith implemented structured entry and exit tickets in labs, guided by the Transparency in Learning and Teaching framework and Bloom's higher-order thinking skills. These tools fostered accountability, clinical applicati...

Peripheral intravenous catheter (PIVC) insertion is an essential skill for nurses. Students, however, face challenges in learning PIVC insertion due in part to limited opportunities for hands-on practice with real patients. Traditional training methods with low-fidelity task trainers lack variability and depend on costly consumable products. To address this gap, Dr. Jeremy Jarzembak and his team d...

Nursing students need to develop strong documentation skills. In this podcast and  article , Lacy Hester describes an interactive classroom activity she developed that immerses students in a realistic legal scenario where they need to defend their own clinical documentation. Using de-identified notes from students' previous simulations, skills labs, and patient care assignments, students criticall...