Engage Your Nursing Class Online.
I will discuss 4 Ways to Engage Your Nursing Class Online.
Are you oblivious of how to create engaging content to transfer from the face-to-face environment to the online world for your nursing students due to being one of the nursing colleges or universities that have temporarily closed due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus ( COVID- 19)?
If you answered yes, then this blog post was designed just for you. Believe me, I have been there.
Please read on.
1.Online Etiquette
Yes, you read it correctly. We also need to use etiquette online.
It’s just like having etiquette when you go out to dine at a fine restaurant, when you meet royals or heads of state and local leaders in your city.
Here are the online etiquette Dos that will ensure that you need to Engage with Your Nursing Class Online successfully.
A former instructor colleague called it Netiquette ( etiquette for the internet).
You can do this as the teacher.
- Introduce yourself to your students and explain the expectations and the consequences of not complying with your expectations in a nonjudgmental way. Example: Hi students or future RNs/LVNs. I’m Professor Johnson, I am your medical -surgical instructor for this term and excited to meet you. Here are my expectations for our course. Please feel free to reach out to me for any concerns or questions.
- Inform your students that they are not to be using profanity.
Here are some more online etiquette dos.
- Respect other students’ posts or points of view even if they disagree.
- Participate in online discussions by giving their feedback as instructed.
- Do not plagiarize.
- Submit assignments as directed.
- Reach out to your instructors for all concerns and questions before assignments are due or if you are having problems.
- Ensure that you have access to the internet to be successful in the class.
2. Flipping your nursing class is one of the best ways to Engage Your Nursing Class Online.
According to the Flip Learning Network, flipped learning, “ is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction from the group learning space to the individual learning space and the resulting group space is transformed”.
Persons that popularized flip learning were John Bergman who is the founder of the Flip Learning Network
( https://flippedlearning.org/), Salim Khan of Khan Academy.
There are many nursing faculty and nurse entrepreneurs such as KeithRN, NurseTim, Michelle Deck and Karen Hessler, etc that have popularized flipped learning for the nursing classroom. I have had the honor of speaking with some of these individuals in person, reading their books and having phone conversations with them.
How do you flip your class?
Flipping the class involves you sending out the videos and or audios of the material to your students prior to them coming to class.
In this recent atmosphere of the Coronavirus, we don’t know how long some schools, colleges, and universities will remain closed. For that reason, online learning may be going on for an extended period of time.
Here are some examples of what you can do to flip your class. You can send your students an audio or video recording of your lectures.
These audios and/or video recordings can be housed on the school’s dedicated Learning Management System ( LMS) like Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, etc. Please ensure that anything you send to students has been pre-approved by your department leaders.
When I flipped my class, I got permission from the dean of the nursing program to do this as a pilot. I also collaborated with the faculty and learning department where I spent countless hours learning how to use all the equipment recording audio and video software. This was years ago.
I got certified in Flip Learning too. No, you don’t have to get certified to flip your class, but that is something that I wanted to do. In a time like this ( Coronavirus), the most crucial element is to get the information to the students as soon and effectively as possible.
If your facility or organization is unable to afford an LMS, then you can send the audios and videos using your smartphone or free voice recording software online.
Step # 1
Let’s say that you’re teaching about Pneumonia or Acute Respiratory Distress System ( ARDS), both are complications of the Coronavirus. You can do this as a perfusion concept or body system discussion.
Have a plan of how and when you will record your audios and videos. Record your audio in intervals of 5 or 6 audios. Do not record one single audio for more than 30 minutes. Your students will lose focus if you go beyond this time. Ask me how I know? Yes, I made that mistake, years ago.
Modulate your voice so that the students can hear you clearly and make sure that you’re in a quiet space. Don’t sound angry. If you have to record the audio until you get it to how you want it to sound, then do that.
For your videos, your desktop and background should not have anything there that you don’t want others to see. Your videos should be no more than 15 minutes each to maintain concentration.
Remember, that you can also embed Vimeo or Youtube videos in your original video to emphasize a point or reduce texts.
Review your video for any errors before posting for your students. Add captions to your videos to comply with the American Disability Act. In a time like this, the captioning may not be required.
Moreover, make sure you look presentable on your videos if you will be showing your face or body. We still want to display professionalism. There’s no need to record until you reach perfection. Just do it!
Step # 1 a
You will discuss the prevention, patho, treatment, nursing interventions, discharge teaching and follow-up care on separate audios or combine some.
You can ask the students to send you the answer to the questions or summarize what they learned and send it to you if you don’t have an LMS that this is housed on.
Step # 2
Incorporate NCLEX style questions throughout your audio and/or video.
For me, I did videos and audios for my lectures. My audios and videos were uploaded to our LMS.
I could track who did the questions on the video and what their scores were. If they didn’t attempt the NCLEX style questions or got most of them wrong, I would send out an email to let them know that they needed to do it or know what I needed to reteach.
You can do this as well. You can have multiple choice, fill in the blanks, SATA, listen to audio or videos and answer questions after a certain section like the patho, or nursing interventions or embedded throughout the audio and/or video. These types of questions mimic the NCLEX questions and will prepare the students for when that time comes.
The experts agree that you should have interactive activities every 2-4 minutes on video or during face-face instructions to decrease the monotony and increase recall and application.
Flipping the class enables the student to listen to the audio or watch the videos multiple times at their leisure before and after class. Yes, repetition equals retention.
I know what you’re saying now, it’s a lot of work, but like everything else, once you get all of this work done at the beginning then the rest of the semester flows more seamlessly for you and the students.
Are you ready for the next point? Okay, let’s go.
3. Reduce the number of PowerPoint/Google slides, texts, but add more images.
Admittedly, most of us were taught by lecturers who used a lot of power points and multiple texts on the PowerPoint /Google slides. I did this as a professor as well until I did a paradigm shift.
However, a lot has changed in the learning space, particularly nursing and nursing education. So, it is no longer acceptable to stand in front of a classroom and read word for word from a PowerPoint/Google slides and use hundreds of PowerPoints/Google slides to teach the topic, whether it is during a time of crisis or not.
So how can we do use slides so that we are able to Engage with our Nursing Class online successfully?
Multiple PPTs/Google slides and texts do not enhance critical thinking skills but reduce attention and engagement.
Therefore if you wan
Instead, the experts suggest having three to five points on each slide to convey your message and use more images on your slide. The cliche that says a picture says a thousand words is completely accurate. https://www.ellenfinkelstein.com/pptblog/9-tips-to-design-presentations-for-webinars/
For instance, if you are teaching a topic on diabetes and you’re focusing on a gangrenous foot and you were planning to use a slide with multiple texts only to explain a gangrenous foot, don’t do that only.
Have slides with texts and slides with images as well. The images need to be clear and not too big.
Slide with the gangrenous foot image Slide with gangrenous foot texts only
Which of these slides do you think is the most effective way to Engage with Your Nursing Class Oline?
You can create one slide with just the gangrenous foot and the other slide explaining the signs and symptoms and you will see which one makes a lasting impression. Having a slide with the images is a great way to Engage Your Nursing Class Online.
4. Communication is another way to Engage Your Nursing Class.
You can Engage Your Nursing Class Online by having proper communication is one of the ultimate forms of engagement.
If you have never taught online before, this task may be daunting to you. Rest assured that you can do this. Reach out to your college or university colleagues to get some tips and me as well.
Let your students know that you are available for any concerns or questions. They can communicate with you via LMS, group calls, Zoom, your cell number, video calls, etc.
For instance, you can ask your students to check in on special days through a group chat that you have set up to discuss any concerns that they have with the assignments. This is definitely a Way to Engage Your Nursing Class Online.
Additionally, you can ask them to participate in a video chat. They should have a place that they can check their grades as well that you have informed them about in your expectations instructions for online learning.
Please click on the link below to listen to my podcast episode on communicating with students.
Implementing these 4 four Ways to Engage Your Nursing Class Online during the Coronavirus outbreak such as online etiquette dos, flipping your classroom, reducing the number of PPTs/Google slides for a topic, using more images and open communication are the best approach to use during this time of crisis and even when things get back to normal.
I hope that these tips will be beneficial to you and your students.
Share any other tips with me that you are implementing to teach your nursing class online during the outbreak.
“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”
―
Yournursingvoice
She can help you with strategies to achieve engaging classroom and corporate presentations. She has worked as a college professor, corporate trainer, as an RN in areas such as medical-surgical, emergency room, telemetry, behavioral health, and geriatrics for more than 15 years.
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