To my future students

Dear future students,

I started out teaching students like I was taught in nursing school.  My instructors had all the knowledge and I was the sponge waiting to soak in that knowledge, believing that it was their job to impart all of their knowledge to me in order for me to become a great nurse.  I soon learned after I started teaching, my students also had the same expectations I had as far as demanding all the knowledge and work from me; however they were quickly bored and zoned out during lecture.  So I started to mix it up a bit, adding critical thinking discussions, group presentation projects where the students were required to find that knowledge on their own, interactive power points that made them think and encouraged them to provide course content to the lecture, and used various videos and other activities.  After that first year of teaching and now going to school specifically for nursing education, I have found that the traditional way of learning is not quite as effective as one would have thought.  I now have learned many technological teaching and learning strategies to encorporate into my classes to engage students in the student-centered learning process.  It is important that education be student-centered and not teacher-centered as was how I was taught.  In order for you to learn you need to be self-directed, eager, and have a thirst for the knowledge.  Future nurses also need to be tech savvy because health care is shifting to technology with many electronic data bases and systems in place.  My job will be to help facilitate your learning by presenting classroom content via various neat and engaging ways using technology.  By teaching you through various technologies you will become familiar with technology and can take that knowledge and skill forward into your practice. 

 

Technology and Nursing: Past, Present, and Future

Nursing Informatics Competencies

There is a great understanding that nurse educators need to have knowledge, skills, and competencies in healthcare informatics.  Before starting the nursing informatics course I was proficient in word processing, document creation and editing, and the ability to research, gather, and synthesize data to incorporate into written documentation.  I also was proficient in power point presentations, internet searches, and use of electronic healthcare informatics such as electronic medical records.  Upon almost completion of a nursing informatics course I have gained further knowledge and ability in creating and using several forms of engaging audio visual tools and presentations that can be used to engage students in learning key nursing concepts as well as assisting them in learning about technology and healthcare informatics.  Some of the valuable tools I have discovered in this class can also be used by students to showcase their individual learning.  I have discovered that I need to continue to develop more innovated ways to teach my students to keep them engaged and provide them with abilities to use and understand technology.  I also wish to continue to learn and understand more about information systems and data sets to help students understand them as well.  I will accomplish this by continuing to research, practice, and apply all new technology and healthcare information management systems.  It is important for graduate nurses to have the knowledge and skills of healthcare technology in order to apply it in their clinical practice to provide safe, efficient, and effective patient care. 

Information on nursing informatics AMIA

Healthcare information management systems   HIMSS
 

 

Authentic Assessment

Providing student feedback is a responsibility of a nurse educator, and essential to the student learning process.  All forms of student feedback should provide students with not only what they may have missed or were incorrect on but should also provide students with their strengths to reinforce the appropriate learning.  Feedback needs to be timely and constructive as well.  Proper feedback not only shows the student where they were incorrect but should provide them with useful ways to improve in their areas of weakness.

As a nurse educator I will provide my students with timely, constructive, and useful feedback.  I believe that students need to not only understand what it is that they might have gotten wrong but why and how can they correct that or how can I lead them to the correct information.  Providing rationale behind a concept or a correct answer to a question and why it is correct and why a certain answer isn’t, for example in a test, can help the student understand and helps develop critical thinking skills. 

Using feedback to “feed forward” allows nurse educators to take what the students learned or didn’t learn and help them develop and improve their instruction of certain material and reteach or reinforce as necessary. 

 

Carnegie Mellon  This website gives examples of formative and summative assessment

Effective feedback for learning This site explains 20 ways to provide feedback