Would like some information on nurse education. Just started Walden MSN in nurse edu

Hello LiveToLearn,

This was a wonderful post. I am working on all of this. I know my posts come across as extremely negative. That is part of what upsets me. I have never been a negative person. I am always the one that gets along with just about everyone. I was always able to see the positive side of most situations. But, I have also always been a very principled person, and the last six years of my nursing career have really conflicted me and changed my view of the world and even my life.

Reading your post made me feel a little better. I am very happy to see people like you in nursing education.

I am working on all of what your wrote about (well, I'm not having trouble with the support part and the building confidence in students part-that comes natural to me). I thought I would be a better teacher though,and I don't think I am in the classroom. I do think I make a great difference at the bedside in both care and education, but am struggling didactically. It is very difficult to leave a place where you influenced outcomes to go to a place where you are ineffective....

Wonderful post, LivetoLearn

Thanks to both of you. Dorimar, I have not been on as much lately, apologies for no response.

Have you considered what it is that makes you feel ineffective in the classroom? I think this is a common feeling, especially at the start. And of course, we all have "those days"...

Bit of advice? In regards to filling your own tank, you need something that is exciting to you. For me, that is in reading certain books that I believe make me a better educator. A few of those titles are:
-Clinical teaching strategies in nursing (Gaberson and Oermann)
-Creative Teaching Strategies for the Nurse Educator (Herrmann)
-Interactive Group Learning: Strategies for Nurse Educators (Ulrich)
-Teaching Strategies for Nurse Educators (DeYoung)
-Instant Teaching Tools for the New Millennium

There are many more, but that's a start.

I also think it's really important that you give yourself permission to fail. If you focus on being perfect, you lose sight of why we are here: for the students. You also limit your own creativity by focusing on the potential for failure. I've had ideas that were a roaring success and ideas that were a total flop. Look for a way to help students with many different learning styles.

I found my own practice very energized after I started trying to reach a variety of learning styles in my lectures. I might have a narrated powerpoint or podcast, a crossword puzzle or wordsearch, a game, a case study application, a simulation, or "hands-on" practice for learners. I teach them to have fun with learning, to make a silly drawing or a funny song up if that will help them remember the content.

The portion about encouraging the students can be difficult if you yourself are not feeling very encouraged. It gets better as the years go on...it seems at least in my grad degrees, I was not taught how to teach, I was taught to research. Now I use that research to my advantage, and search nursing and education literature for new ideas. Just as you wouldn't expect your students to be experts straight away at a skill, don't expect yourself to be perfect. Constantly building your own knowledge, and finding fun ways to communicate it can be half the battle.

I think it is perhaps your high standards that may be causing you difficulty, as much of a paradox as that may seem. Much like the new grad who is so type A that they are devastated when they find they can't always be the perfect bedside nurse who holds hands, is always available and cheerful, always has everything done in a timely manner, etc, it may be that you are expecting too much of yourself.

If the joy has gone out of teaching for this time, really look at paring down. If something is not contributing to your knowledge, making you excited to enter the classroom, or to interact with students, let it go. It's sometimes hard to want to deliver the "perfect lecture" only to realize that just like the "perfect nurse" it doesn't really exist.

Students don't remember simple content in a vacuum. They remember the stories you tell that relates to the content, how it impacted you, the stories of what you did to help a patient in crisis. You've already got an apparently good background in bedside nursing. Use those stories to show the students relevance of the information.

For example, let's say you are to give a lecture on electrolytes. Instead of just saying "the normal range for potassium is 3.5-5.5" tell them about the patient you had with a potassium of 7, awaiting dialysis, with tall peaked "T-waves". How did he look? Did he have any signs and symptoms? Help them "see" what you saw. This will help them to apply what they are learning. Ask them "what would you have done?" Let it be a cliffhanger for your next class. I read good advice somewhere before (can't remember where now)
1st- tell the students what you will tell them
2nd- show them the relevance of that information to practice
3rd- paint a visual picture of the patient
4th- ask them application or higher level questions about how to care for the patient
5th- leave them with more questions, which you can answer at the next class session

I try to make my classes like a "soap opera"...I want the students to always wonder "what will happen next??"

You can do it. Just take a bit of a breather to determine what it is that excites you about nursing, then share that with the students.

Also- if you know you excel in the clinical setting, you can implement those skills in the classroom. For example, lets say you are to teach a lecture on neonatal resuscitation. You could borrow another instructor, and have them play the role of another nurse. You are both in the delivery room when a newborn is not doing well. You can have the "script" cover what s/s a newborn in distress might exhibit. One of you can intervene appropriately and the newborn recovers. You now have an engaged audience.

I have also done things the "wrong" way on purpose when teaching students. For example. After they are very comfortable in a skill (ex- catheterization), I will tell them I am going to perform the skill with errors, and the student who catches the most errors wins a prize. You can then ask them about means of reducing nosocomial UTIs, unnecessary caths, etc. You can bring in labs that measure renal function, non-invasive assessment techniques (bladder palpation, I/O, bladder scans, etc). I lecture around 15 minutes, then have them apply. Lecture some more, then more application.

Thank you so much!!! I have found that when Ican use real experiences to make a point, the students learn and remember. That is when I know I am teaching well, telling them my stories that apply to their learning objectives. The only problem is that all they have to learn cannot be demonstrated with real experiences (not enough time, and not enough experiences). I can say that they learn from my expeiriences and stories and that is what I wanted. I just hate when I have to recite a lecture and look out over vacant faces that show minds somewhere else, or worse- confused, frustrated faces. I have read Deyoung's Teaching strategies for nurse educators (my copy is dogeared). My director also gave me some great books by Linda Caputi. These are really good. Unfortunately, between writing curriculum, writing lessons, writing tests, doing clinical, and grading, I have had little time for reading for me.

I decided to step back to adjunct only, and get a job at the bedside in critical care. I want to maintain my clinical skills, and have a little bit of family life. They still want me to teach the critical care course next time around. By then I am hoping I will have it all written and I can just be fine tuning (I hope). When I am not teaching didactic critical care I will do some clinicals. What finally decided me was when they told me I had to teach the new leadership class starting in October (which would require me to write that curriculum too). I thought I would get a breather with just clinicals, skills lab, tutoring, and additional seminars after this quarter. When I found out I had to write another curriculum and teach it at the same time, plus do clinicals, I just decided I can't do it anymore. On top of that I have been required to particpate in faculty committees that have required quite a bit of work from home as well.

So, I think this is a good decision for me. I am not leaving teaching all together, just cutting back.

Thank you for all your input. You and Vicky have been a great help!

I am PT Faculty and have been reading a lot of the posts stating that part timers get paid per hour. It depends on where you work. I work a a College and I sign a contract that pays a certain amount based on credits and total time the credits amount to for the semester. I put in way more hours than the contract. I stay after for some students who ask for help, at home I am preparing material for questions asked during clinical to help with their studies, grading papers, not to mention answering emails and phone calls from students. But it is worth it. I love every minute of it!!!! It is where my heart is. Every 3 semesters of teaching the contract pay goes up about $100.

Good Luck to you. It is a wonderful job to have if your heart is really in to it.
Evelyn

Teaching is wonderful. Don't let others influence your decision. You follow your heart. Your the only one that knows truly where your heart is and from reading your posts it is teaching. It is a wonderful career. You don't see many people that love their job and to be able to say that you have found a job that you love to do is something that most people would love to be a to say and have. I know I love my job with teaching and if you know that is where your heart is, then forget about all the negative postings and follow your heart! Who cares about the money, heck it is more that what you make a New Nurse. And where I work I get paid pretty well, more than what people have posted, but I am not posting about what I get paid, it does not matter. I am posting on what you asked for: The Positives. I can tell you that when a students smiles at you and says Thank You for all that you do is a wonderful feeling. And the best feeling of all is to be there during their pinning ceremony and watch them walk across the stage with a New Identity, which you helped mold. Or when the come up to you and they say that finally they see the light or the light bulb has gone off and you can see it and they smile at you with a huge grin laughing. Or when they Nominate you for an award. The simple Thank You's from them is what makes it all worth while. And as semesters goes by, from time to time you get an email from one of them telling you how they are doing and thanking you for all the help you gave them during school. It is a wonderful job and I love it. Go for it and don't let others influence you. It is the best job I have ever had that has really made my heart go pitter pat. Evelyn

At this moment I find that teaching hours and teaching load depends on the facility you work. For example , if you work at the college as the Full time Faculty your time would be counted say like 19 hr weekly ( plus prep time and office time) . Somewhere else is maybe 8 hours clinical, 9 hours class plus prep time.
Talking about adjunct - they are always better paid because of the other things , but at the same time if you are adjunct you can not get tenured and your job goes on needing basis. If there is no need as the adjunct you are first to go !
Is it fun to be around students - my God it is ! I like it.
Pay is not good... well,... what can we do? If you like to teach then money should not be your first priority ( and never was with teaching anyway).
If you have to work during summer you will get a new contract that will underline it ,so you will be paid more than what you should be for sept - May. I like my holidays off. I like to plan to be around my kids when they are free from their school. So , in one way you could get much better somewhere else but you need to love it in order to do it.

Dorimar, it sounds as if you have found a good solution. I hope this change will allow you to refresh yourself and "fill the well;" I've always thought this is one of the most difficult parts of nursing in any area- how much we give out, and how we often don't take the time to care for ourselves.

Bosnanurse wrote, "Faculty your time would be counted say like 19 hr weekly ( plus prep time and office time) . Somewhere else is maybe 8 hours clinical, 9 hours class plus prep time".


Bosnanurse, could you please expound on this a bit? I am starting to see that part of my problem may be with the school I am working. I currently teach a class for 3.5 hours every Thursday. I wrote the syllabus and all the curriculm for this class. I write the lessons too. The powerpoints that come with the book are horrible, so I am writing my own powerpoints too. The tests in test bank need screening and revision and often I have to write my own tests (or large portionsof tests). Plus, we are required to write a test blueprint for each test that identifies the step in the nursing process, the level of cognitive learning, adn the category of NCLEX for each question of the tests we write. On top of this, I do clinical three days/week. We are also required to have weekly tutor sessions for struggling students. Also I am required to participate in faculty committees that require work from home. weekdays that I am not at clinical, I am expected to be at school, even when I do not have class. So, I end up doing lesson writing and grading and test writing , etc. when I go home at night. I am salaried adn paid for 40 hours/week.

I am not being negative or complaining but just trying to figure out if this is or is not the normal requirements for full time faculty elsewhere?

Your forthright answer could really help me in my career path.

Thanks!

Sorry to intrude, but your conversation is pertinent to my current situation as well.

I work for a College of Technology at a large state University. We are currently trying to set up an equitable work-load system that will allow us to compare with the academic side of the University - the English, Math, Business, etc. side of the house where there are no clinical per se, few skills labs, and no on-call status times. The academic side uses credit hours, professional development, and research as a basis for work-load. This of course doesn't apply well to nursing instruction, where a 3 credit clinical class may involve 2 or 3 eight hour shifts in a facility each week.

Unfortunately, most of this effort is the result of budget cuts and having to justify our existence, but it never-the-less was needed in any case.

More relevant to your discussion, in benchmarking with other schools in the area, we really have found no consistency in what is considered a functional work-load for nursing instructors. All the schools consider work-loads differently, so you may not get a standard answer to your question on what is considered "normal."

We are trying to set up our system where a standard work-load will consist of the following:

1. 25-30 student contact hours, where we are with the students either in class (didactic), in lab, or in clinical. This is not necessarily 1 to 1, it could be 1 to 4 in lab, or 1 to 10 in clinical. But each hour counts towards the 25-30 requirement.
2. 10 hours of typical instructor work, including grading, lesson plan preparation, etc.
3. Five hours of professional development, such as taking classes, serving on professional committees, etc.

.

Now of course many of us still work the typical 60 hour weeks getting everything done, but our work-load is geared towards the above. If we end-up with a work-load that exceeds 40 hours, we of course do not get extra money, but we are supposed to get a reduced work-load the next semester to compensate overall so that we do not exceed a work-load of 40 hours per week for an 11 month contract.

In any case, as other posters have mentioned, I believe that teachers of all types rely on the intangible benefits to make their jobs worth-while. The tangible benefits (money and hours) usually are not near enough.