Nurse Educator Tips for Teaching

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 research study that nursing faculty can use when teaching RN-to-BSN students. Trauma-informed teaching is emphasized.

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 technological approach on student learning.

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, particularly in specialty courses with unique populations and limited clinical practice. This led to the development of course-specific clinical evaluation tools. Learn more about these tools in her article, where she also shares examples of tools with readers.

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 application, and inclusive practice. In this podcast and article, they describe this innovative strategy.

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 developed a bimanual haptic feedback mixed reality IV simulator. This technology simulates IV needle insertion under diverse conditions. Their article explains the development of this new technology and reports findings on students' improved confidence and success rate.