As nurse educators in today’s world, we are faced with unique challenges and issues. Understanding the characteristics of Generation Y is key to successful education of the nurses of the future. These students are independent and goal-oriented, are technology savvy, and are critical consumers. Raised by self-esteem conscious Baby Boomer parents, Generation Y students have expectations of success, limited experience with hardship, and unlimited confidence. This inspiring presentation will open your eyes to the important factors of teaching in today’s world and reinforce the impact that educators have upon the future of nursing.

2:00-2:30 BREAK - POSTER FORUM/EXHIBITS

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T2

Kathy Frisbie, MSN, RN, Director of Nursing Education;
Gwen Steffen, BS, RN, Life Skill Coordinator
Morgan Community College, Ft. Morgan, CO

The nursing program at Morgan Community College implemented a program to facilitate success for students. Nursing students often struggle with the fast paced intense work load of the program. To improve the NCLEX pass rate and to help students succeed, a program called A Survival Kit for Nursing School: Strategies for Success was developed. The result has been a dramatic increase in pass rates of the licensure exam.
This presentation will focus on the methods used to address attrition in nursing programs as well as low first time pass rates on the national examination. Specific strategies to help students succeed will be presented. As the project continues at our college, we will examine the results, processes and resources developed. Specific data of how this project improved outcomes for the nursing program will be shared.
Participants will be engaged in active learning in this presentation by participating in examples of specific activities that have been successfully used for students. You will leave with a list of standard and supplemental questions to ask when evaluating the need for the project, how to determine what worked and what needs improvement in the future.

OBJECTIVES:
1. Discuss potential barriers to success for students and ways to identify those at risk for being unsuccessful.
2. Identify at least five specific strategies to help students succeed.
3. Discuss ways to implement a Strategies for Success program.

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T3

Kathleen M. Williamson, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor;
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL

Full abstract will be avaiable in late ApriThe use of handheld devices is being introduced with increased frequency in many health care settings including nursing education. Integrating technology in nursing education is essential in order to prepare the student in an environment comparable to the nursing practice setting. Evidence based practice requires validation of the benefits of integrating technology use in nursing education. Faculty support through creative instructional design and the development of realistic scenarios is essential for the success of integrating handheld technology into nursing education. The purpose of the study was to assess if Personal Digital Assistants (PDA's) affect student information seeking behavior in the clinical and classroom setting and if it is an effective use of college of nursing resources. The study addressed, if and in what way can PDA's be integrated into the nursing undergraduate curriculum with efficiency. A qualitative approach was used to evaluate the use of PDA's by nursing faculty and students. The participants were able to supply information on the use of the PDA hardware and software that was used in the classroom and clinical setting. Data was collected from journals that faculty and students completed and were coded for how they used the PDA in the classroom and clinical settings, experience with using PDA (strengths and weakness of device and software), time it took to locate information, how students view faculty use and faculty view students use, how does faculty incorporate PDA use in the classroom and clinical settings, and user and product satisfaction. By conducting this research in the area of student learning the researcher was able to assess how students and faculty were able to make critical decisions using handheld technology in the classroom and clinical settings. The faculty and students found creative ways to use technology that would benefit the educational program. The outcome from this study was the integration of handheld technology into the undergraduate and graduate nursing program curriculum.

OBJECTIVES:
1. Discuss ways to access information via a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).
2. Identify the benefits of using a PDA in one’s personal and professional life.
3. Discuss innovative ways to integrate use of the PDA with nursing students.

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T4

Whei Ming Su, MA, RN, Associate Professor;
Purdue University North Central, Westville, IN

The rapidly changing health care delivery system requires nurses to make more complex decisions, and the increasing demand for accountability in clinical judgment is a reality in the practice of nursing today. Since critical thinking skills involved in clinical reasoning are essential for making sound judgments, the development of critical thinking skills has become an overriding concern in nursing education. This presentation focuses on how to design instruction for direct teaching of critical thinking skills in the clinical laboratory.

Critical thinking is abstract. When planning teaching, the following questions must be considered: (1) What is critical thinking? (2) What kind of learning outcomes may represent critical thinking skills involved in clinical reasoning? (3) What types of teaching strategies are appropriate in relation to the identified learning outcomes? in this session, the presenter will describe how one undergraduate nursing program identified learning outcomes from an integration matrix based on nursing process and core elements of the APA definition of critical thinking. Based on these learning outcomes, various clinical teaching strategies were developed. The strategies include: (1) observation accompanied with systematic questioning (2) diagnostic reasoning worksheet (3) case method/context-dependent Item sets (4) reflective journal.

OBJECTIVES:
1. Examine learning outcomes for teaching critical thinking skills involved in clinical reasoning.
2. Describe various clinical teaching strategies that reflect selected critical thinking learning outcomes.

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T5

Anne-Marie Williamson, MSN, RN, FNPC, Assistant Professor;
Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls, TX

Are we obligated to entertain, as well as educate? No, but keeping pace with continuous changes in both health care and the learning environment necessitates new approaches to instruction that are teach friendly and learner centered. The “classroom” is changing. Students commute long distances to class, disperse into widely varied environments for clinical experience, distance education is becoming more common, and technology is booming. Each of these issues presents educators with both challenges and solutions within the educational process. We are answering some of those challenges in graduate nursing education through the use of the iPod and Podcasts at Midwestern State University in our Family Nurse Practitioner Program. The presenter was awarded a grant to qualitatively evaluate the effectiveness of portable updateable audio visual technology to reinforce concepts related to physical assessment, diagnosis, and treatment in Nurse Practitioner education. This presentation will answer the questions: 1) What is podcasting? 2) Why Podcast? and 3) How do I Podcast?

OBJECTIVES:
1. Describe how Podcasts and iPods can be used in the learning environment.
2. Describe a plan for implementing iPods in the educational setting.

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T6

Karren Kowalski, PhD, RN, Project Director;
Marianne Horner, MS, RN, Project Liaison;
Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence, Denver, CO

A number of issues contribute to the nursing shortage in Colorado and the nation. One of the most significant is the shortage of qualified clinical nurse educators. This grant seeks to address this issue.
Bringing “the right people to the right table for the right piece of the work” has been the key to success at the Colorado Center for Nursing Excellence. Seeking the specialty knowledge of the content experts and tapping their wisdom has been extremely successful in this project. This collaborative model has been utilized at all levels in the development of staff nurses for the role of Clinical Scholar.
A forty hour didactic course has been developed and presented a total of 6 times and has prepared in excess of 200 Clinical Scholars. A Clinical Scholar is an agency employed expert clinical staff nurse who is released from their usual job responsibilities two to four times a year to teach rotations of nursing students. Thus, these Clinical Scholars occupy a unique position with responsibilities to their agency employer, to students and to the schools of nursing. As a consequence of participation in the program there have been a number of anticipated as well as very surprising outcomes.

OBJECTIVES:
1. Discuss the rationale for utilizing a collaborative approach to solving the shortage of clinical educators.
2. Identify key content areas included in the didactic course developed to prepare new Clinical Scholars.

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T7

Lydia Massias, MS, RN, Professor of Nursing;
Carol Shimer, EdD, RN, Professor of Nursing;
Pasco-Hernando Community College, New Port Richey, FL

Pasco-Hernando Community College has designed an on-campus simulated children’s hospital using six high-fidelity simulators who have been given names, health histories, medical /surgical diagnoses, and treatment plans. Students are rotated through two full clinical days at the simulated unit and are responsible for performing and documenting their patient’s care. This presentation will demonstrate how to make simulations so engaging and realistic that they rival the traditional hospital experience!

OBJECTIVES:
1. Identify areas of their curriculum where simulations can be utilized.
2. Recognize resources necessary to bring the selected scenarios to life.

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