Creating the Learning Environment of Tomorrow

Drexel University Nursing Education Institute: Creating the learning environment of tomorrow

The College of Nursing and Health Professions of Drexel University sponsored its annual nurse educator’s conference in Atlantic City, NJ on June 27-29, 2008 at the Sheraton Atlantic City Convention Center. I was privileged to have attended the conference on 28th and 29th. Although I have attended nurse educators conferences before, this was the first time that I have gone through CETL to do so and hope that I will be given the opportunity to attend more in the future.

Each day the conference sessions began by 0645 and was over at 2pm which allowed plenty of time for leisure activity. The Sheraton Convention Center provided nice rooms and had several other accommodations such as a day spa, 2 restaurants, exercise room, free wireless on a designated floor and more. The best part was that it was conveniently located to shopping, food, and fun all within walking distance so there was no need to catch a taxi anywhere.

Now for Lessoned Learned

There were so many sessions to choose from that the worst part of the conference was deciding which session to enter. Every hour there were 5 to 6 concurrent sessions to choose from, fortunately a CD was provided that included all PowerPoint’s from all presenters for future reference.

The first session I attended at 0630 on Saturday morning was titled Using electronic resources to foster geriatrics in prelicensure nursing programs. The presenters of this session discussed how to incorporate technology currently being used in healthcare settings in the classroom. One example used was a software program that many hospitals use to determine the risk level of falls for patients, the same technology could be applied in the classroom when teaching assessment skills.

The plenary session that followed was on profiling violence. The speaker Paul Clements provided tips to consider when disciplining students, signs to be aware of such as subtle statements made by students such as “you do what you have to do and I’ll do what I have to do”. He also advised that office furniture should always be arranged so that the student is not between the professor and door in the event a quick exit is needed and if so plan student meetings in an alternative setting when there is a need to give bad information to the student. This was something I had never considered but will take it into consideration this fall when planning student meetings.

I attended three other sessions this day the topics were enhancing critical thinking skills of the baccalaureate nursing student; evaluation of students in the clinical setting; and the use of film as a teaching strategy. The session on use of film was very innovative. The speaker discussed how she would take clips from movies and apply it to the topic of discussion. For example, when she is teaching depression she would find movies that had characters with depression, after the students would watch a clip of it the professor would then start a discussion by asking a question like… “What classic signs of depression did the character display?” The goal is to help the students relate to something in order to retain the material longer.

Day 2 of the conference I attended three sessions prior to the closing plenary. Although each of the three sessions I chose to attend had different speakers and different viewpoints, all three were related to teaching strategies that promote learning when teaching the millennial generation. All presenters discussed the importance of using a variety of teaching strategies in the classroom with very little lecture. Youtube clips seem to the fastest growing strategy followed by virtual excursions and simulation.

This conference was very useful especially for me, a novice educator. I learned several strategies that I will gradually incorporate into my lesson plans. I look forward to attending this same conference next year and possibly being a presenter myself even if only a poster presenter.

Thanks again CETL for providing me with this opportunity.

Leslee Shepard
Division of Nursing