Desired Characteristics of Effective Nurse Educators - “My Ideal Nursing Instructor”

Vicki,

Thank you for your thoughts on this. Truth - I know I will say absolutely nothing. All I care about is graduating in December. I guess I needed to vent, though, because I sure did so here!

To get back on track with the topic of your thread, I've said here on the board before that my top desired quality in a professor is that the professor demonstrates and communicates positive expectations for his or her students.

What I mean by this is the professor acts, speaks, and telegraphs an attitude that he or she expects and assumes achievement from students. I love it when I have an instructor who has this attitude/demeanor, etc. Students generally tend to fulfill these expectations. (Of course the opposite is true as well - when an instructor seems to have negative expectations and students meet those expectations in response.)

wow vicki--where were you when i went to nursing school--which I may add I just graudated june 19th--my instructors are nothing like in what you wrote--mine degraded-demoralized--picked--laughted at you--talked about you--Iam amazed I lasted in the program,because there were plenty of times I wanted to quit..Its nice to know there are caring educators in the nursing profession

My favorite instructors in NS generally got the poorest evaluations by most of my fellow students, and for the same reasons: being tough, no-nonsense, and having very high expectations from the students. These were generally the instructors with many years of bedside experience (especially critical care in all its forms), topped with APN and/or PhD training.

These were the instructors who were "mean," "insensitive," and "too difficult." These were the instructors who had to be bullied by students into giving detailed study outlines, and who would dare to do things like include material on tests from the text that wasn't explicitly covered in lecture.

These were instructors like my critical-care clinical instructor who expected me to have a basic understanding of vent settings my first week of ICU clinical. We hadn't even covered that in lecture yet! Guess what: I should have read up on it anyways. The next week, she got me for not knowing (basics) about chest tube care. Third week, she did NOT get me on hemodynamics/lines related to the CVICU, because I had jumped ahead of the lecture and studied the cardiac chapters like mad.

That clinical instructor is a CNS in Trauma who first-assists in trauma surgery. She was awesome, busted my chops and got me to learn. I was very proud to have earned a modicum of her respect by the end of that clinical experience.

She was not invited back to teach the following semester. Too many negative evaluations from students. She made them work too hard, it was our last semester, several weren't even interested in critical care nursing in the first place, and of course...she was "mean."

In a nutshell, the "ideal nursing instructor" will vary by who you ask, and if the majority of the students surveyed are a bunch of whining, entitled brats, then well...you get what you ask for.

My favorite instructors so far have been enthusiatic. I actually felt like they really wanted me to learn and were happy when it was evident I was "getting it". The older women that had been nurses for years "have seen it all, done it all and know who I am". That's not true. I've been working since I was 15, owned my own business, raised my children, have grandchildren and made straight A's to get into nursing school. Some instructors treat us like young children who need to be reminded to behave. Why not treat us like the hard working students we are? Nursing is the hardest thing I've ever done in school and as a life long learner at 51 that says a lot. I think instructors should treat students with a little more respect because we worked hard to get in or you wouldn't have picked us. We don't know much but that's what we are counting on you to do, teach us. We want to learn. We want to do it right. There is so much stress to be perfect and some are struggling just to pass. Some people just dismiss us because we are nursing students but just think, we may be your nurse some day!

SO RIGHT

Thank you so much for posting this! I've really been thinking a lot about becoming a nursing instructor (in addition to doing bedside nursing and/or CRNA - lots of stuff I'm interested in hehe) and I'm happy to read that a lot of the desirable traits are ones that I have - or at least hope I do! And if I don't, I now have an excellent resource here!

But what do you do when you try to encompass those traits and then feel that your not a respected as you want to be? The students seem to want to dictate their opinions about tests and dates for completion and cut you off when speaking. A whole lot of whineing at times. Ohhh this is so much work but you said is what I hear often. Is it that way for all nursing classes? I find that I must slip back into the traditional evil instructor in order to regain control. Each time it bothers me greatly, but I don't want the students to think that they are in control or to have them think that I am going to do their work for them.

I have one instructor that is happy and fun and relates stories about illnesses with patients she had which helps us remember what to do and how the disease progresses. Everyone LOVES her but she is firm when it comes to reviewing test questions. But let me say, her test questions are usually straight up. We have a few instructors that throw in those questions that you can't answer or it's one tiny sentence in a chapter of 60 pages. Nursing school IS a lot of work. I don't know how the people that work or have kids at home do it. I personally have no life. It's school, studying, studying, studying. I carry a book with me at all times incase I get stuck in traffic or have to wait for 5 mins somewhere. This is a lot to learn in two years and people's lives depend on us knowing it ALL BY HEART. Yes, there are the whiners. I'm tired of them too but for some reason they don't seem to whine so much to the happy teacher. We actually asked for her to pin us in December when we graduate because she's our favorite.

These are things we all know, but you did a very good job of putting them all together in one place. Thank you.

I had a clinical instructor that couldn't stand to have students her age (about 45?) or older. She would put them down and try to fail them. She was definitely age discriminating. Too bad she's still a clinical instructor! Eventually she'll pick on the wrong person and get sued.