Author: Kimberly Brown

7538 Nurse Educator Certificate program update

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It feels good to be in the last class of the Nurse Educator Certificate program.  This assignment is an opportunity to reflect on some accomplishments from the previous classes and where I feel I am at this point in the program.  Nursing 7530 was on Strategies for Clinical Teaching.  This is the area that I have been most comfortable with as the majority of my experience has been as a teacher, preceptor and mentor in the hospital setting.  All of my assignments for that class are on this blog site as separate pages as we designed our teaching portfolios during that class. The role of the preceptor in the clinical setting is so important to making sure that nursing students are able to attain the knowledge and skills needed to be a successful nurse upon graduation.  It is also important to make sure that as we onboard new nurses in the clinical setting they receive the knowledge and support that they need to be successful.  Principles and content learned in this class have helped me demonstrate the  National League for Nursing (NLN) Competency of Facilitation of Learning (Competency 1).  This class helped me to recognize the cultural influences on teaching and learning, reinforced the importance of engaging in self- reflection to improve teaching practices and using technology with teaching.

Nursing 7536 focus on Principles of Instructional Design for Nurses.  During this class, the focus was on developing learning objectives, curriculum design and the scholarship of teaching.  We had several discussion boards.  The first was on Boyer’s model of scholarship where I discussed the scholarship of teaching using a leadership case study.  The second discussion was on curriculum design where I discussed that the model that resonated with me was the Backwards design model.  In my work, I have since used that model in the creation of content for a couple of CE events.  This is an example of how I was immediately able to use content from class in my work setting.  The third discussion we participated in was about online learning.  I have to admit that I was resistant to online learning when I first experienced it as a learner.  Over the years, I have become much more comfortable with it.  This class was occurring during the time I was actually teaching an online class.  In the class I teach, we have 5 synchronous sessions where we are able to have very rich discussions.  Other weeks we have assignments and/ or online discussions.  Something I learned from this class that I plan to incorporate into my next cohort of students is to summarize the discussion at the end of each module.  Our instructor for 7536 did that and I found it quite helpful to make sure that I had the key points.  During this course we also learned about the domains of learning and Bloom’s taxonomy.  I am attaching two assignments from this course that demonstrate my mastery of the content.  One is a critique of a mock learning module and one is about identifying domains of learning and the correct level on Bloom’s taxonomy.  The third link is to the TedEd module I designed on dealing with change.  That was a new medium for me.  While I found it a little difficult to maneuver, I liked what we were able to design.

7536 Module2 Assignment Kim Brown-1ef2d4v

ModuleCritique Kim Brown-1d33020

https://ed.ted.com/on/kOJuzJur

 

Nursing 7537 from the first half of this semester was more of a challenge for me to keep up with the workload.  The focus was on assessment and evaluation as well as program evaluation.  I did appreciate the content however.  My favorite assignment from this class was the program evaluation assignment.  I chose to complete the option about Hypothetical BSN program and their compliance with the Ohio administrative code.  The materials for that assignment included an adjudication from a program of nursing in Ohio closed by the Ohio Board of Nursing.  Boy was that an eye opener!  I could not believe how many chances they had to fix their program and they remained out of compliance.  In this class we learned about grading rubrics and how to construct an effective one so that the learners and teacher are very clear about the criteria the assignment is being evaluated against.  I learned that the grading rubrics that I had for the class I taught did not meet all of the elements for an effective grading rubric.  They were more basic and primarily laid out the amount of points that each component of the assignment was worth.  It did not give the breakdown as to quality of the content in each section.  I am attaching an assignment below where I developed a grading rubric for a failure to rescue simulation for new med-surg nurses.

Brown- CreationofaGradingRubric-2kpbz72

Brown CaseStudyWeek5-1tcy1c8

Brown Week6-SystematicProgramEvaluation,AccreditationProcessAssignment,Option3 (1)-15am7hu

Thus far in 7538, I have enjoyed working with my preceptor.  I had the opportunity to go to simulation earlier this week where I was able to view the process of pre-briefing, the simulation itself and the debriefing.  It was very powerful participating in the sim in light of what I have learned over the course of this program.  The Valiga article from this week discusses the importance of simulation and how it has exploded as a student centered learning tool.  The article states that the debriefing may be even more important than the actual simulated experience.  I found this to be true when I participated this week.  There was so much learning in the discussion that occurred afterwards regarding the critical thinking and what the RN should be watching for in terms of complications, plan of care etc.

This same article also talks about Dedicated Education Units (DEUs).  We have some DEUs and hybrid DEUs at the Medical Center.  The feedback I have received from nurse managers on those units is that they really like them and like building that stronger relationship with the students and the instructors.  As we are now having some of our first participants graduate this year, it has proven to be a powerful recruitment tool as well.  Several of those students are applying for jobs here.

I briefly discussed some NLN competencies earlier in this blog, but I would like to highlight a couple more that I believe I have demonstrated.

  • Competency 2- Facilitate learner development and Socialization
    • I feel that I definitely model professional behaviors such as being involved in your professional organization, engaging in lifelong learning and advocacy
  • Competency 3- Use assessment and evaluation strategies
    • use assessment and evaluation strategies to enhance the teaching- learning process
    • skill in the use of tools for assessing clinical practice
  • Competency 5 – Function as a change agent and leader
    • Develops leadership skills to shape and implement change- This is what I do every day 🙂
  • Competency 6- Pursue continuous quality improvement in the nurse educator role
    • demonstrates a commitment to lifelong learning- I have a DNP but still back in school
    • engages in activities that promote socialization to the nurse educator role- lots of opportunities with clinical hours

I look forward to completing this journey to attaining my Nurse Educator Certificate this semester 🙂