The College of Nursing strives to contribute to the improvement of nursing education through innovation, evaluation and participation in local to global nursing education activities.  The faculty use a variety of teaching-learning practices to assist students in the achievement of expected student learning outcomes.

Simulation

One of the innovative teaching practices implemented is the simulated case scenarios utilizing high fidelity human patient simulators. Simulation is used to provide the students with realistic patient-centered simulations while promoting critical thinking in a non-threatening interactive simulation environment. The human patient simulators used in lab which include adult, infant, pediatric, and obstetric simulators have been used weekly to introduce students to new content as well as reinforce content already learned.  The technology in the Simulation Center allows the facilitator to operate, record, and review with the students as they enact patient scenarios in the simulated setting. The planned case scenarios enable the students to experience patients who present unusual symptoms or are high risk or disaster scenarios that may not be readily accessible during clinical rotations are presented. The design of the Simulation Center is intended to be multidisciplinary, experiential and interactional. Nursing and medicine have collaborated on the development and implementation of simulation scenarios which involve both College of Nursing students and College of Medicine students.  Future simulations will include development of inter-professional training with other health professions disciplines.

Technology

The role of the nurse in the use of technology to improve the delivery of patient care has evolved. The College of Nursing responded by offering a course which teaches the use of information technology (IT) to access, retrieve, organize, and evaluate information related to evidence-based nursing practice.  Using a problem-based approach, students use IT resources to examine health-related problems, obtain and organize pertinent information, and professionally communicate findings as appropriate for hospital settings.

New Program

Teaching innovations that meet the needs and expectations of the health care community are implemented by the College of Nursing.  Nurses and hospital administrators indicated the need for an RN-BSN program. The new program allows RNs to complete the Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. In some instances students have an option of attending classes on campus or enrolling in online courses.  Creating an environment conducive to the learning needs of all students is very important.