I currently attend a private college in the northeastern portion of the United States. I am one term away from graduating with my ADN, BUT myself and entire class have run into a major roadblock. We are one week away from this term ending, and the entire class has failed all three exams and are subsequently failing the class. Not by a little, but severely failing. Our grades range from 56% to 74% in the class and we all know a 78% is key to success.
Our teacher and other educators such as the DON, ADON, etc. continue to tell us WE are the problem, WE do not know how to study, and these tests are so easy a LPN student can pass them! Our college seems to care less that literally not one student will be in the next term due to entire class failure... I find it hard to believe that we have no one who is trying to "fix" this problem.
Our teacher will not curve the grades whatsoever, we are told we do not know how to take tests. It's quite funny when the majority of us are working LPNs but we are not "real nurses" and do not know how to read a test. I have spent countless hours studying like any "prudent nurse" would do... I am not looking to be handed my RN, BUT I also feel that there needs to be a fair shot, not be told after almost a year into this program passing all classes that I have "poor test taking skills"... shouldn't I have run into that issue awhile ago?
ANYWAYS... Has anyone run into this problem during nursing school? How was it resolved? If we all fail, who can we take our issues to? The dean of the RN program also says we are the problem too, so it is pointless to address this with her. I can speak for my class when we say we are past the point of feeling defeated... we are losing the love of nursing due to this college.
Any advice and/or comments are welcome... but please no negativity. I am not sure how much more my mind can handle!
This school will not have a graduating nursing class then? I would think they would not want that kind of publicity. Read your student handbook and go up the chain. Something is very wrong.
Agree something is very wrong. A few students failing a class is normal, the whole class failing certainly is not. There is something fundamentally wrong with how the class is structured for not one single student to succeed. Not sure what advice to give except keep going up the chain until somebody will listen. Obviously from your earlier post the Dean of nursing is no help, but there should be people in positions above a program Dean. Unless the nursing program is literally this schools only offered degree and they don't care for whatever reason that the program is going to lose an entire graduating class there should be somebody affiliated with the college that doesn't want the kind of negative publicity this could bring.
I'm wondering is this for-profit is intentionally trying to avoid staying in business/ making it look like the student's fault when they DO close their doors?
The whole concept-based curriculum is troublesome to a degree (it's the flavor of the day in poorly organized programs it seems), and to introduce it in the middle of a program is just plain wrong.
I'm wondering is this for-profit is intentionally trying to avoid staying in business/ making it look like the student's fault when they DO close their doors?
The whole concept-based curriculum is troublesome to a degree (it's the flavor of the day in poorly organized programs it seems), and to introduce it in the middle of a program is just plain wrong.
For the record, Concept-Based Nursing Education has been around for decades. Some of the best programs in the country were concept-based back in the 1970's. I attended such a program (Duke) back in the 1970's. (I think Johns Hopkins was concept-based back then, too.) But they are becoming more popular these days -- and I suspect a lot of schools are implementing such programs with faculty unprepared for the switch -- and perhaps with students not academically prepared for the level of critical thinking required.
As for the OP's school. It sounds like a horrible place -- and I recommend she find a better school.
Now, the sad part is that chances are very high the root of the problem is you are going to a private college.
There are many private schools that are excellent -- some of the best nursing programs (and general academic institutions) in the country. The problem is not that it's a private school; it's that it is a proprietary (private-for-profit) school.
This school will not have a graduating nursing class then? I would think they would not want that kind of publicity. Read your student handbook and go up the chain. Something is very wrong.
That's what I said! There's only 12 of us now, and o let two people are semi close to passing. Looks pretty bad going from a class of 50 to a graduating class of two... but they're keeping us in the dark and pretending we all aren't failing. We have one week left of class and a final. Most of us have to get 90% or higher on the final to pass with the 78, but there has yet to be one person who had passed any of the three previous tests we've taken.
People who were failed in my program sought legal help, but it was on an individual basis and to be quite frank, nobody ever heard of them again so obviously they were not successful in their fight against that program. It looks like a system failure to me. The school should offer a fix, perhaps a 'redo' semester at half cost or free while they fix their instruction, etc. Unfortunately, from what you say it sounds as if there are other motives in place and they have no intention of fixing anything for this class.
Sorry, I got a little hung up on the "so easy LPN students could pass it". To me that says that you are being taught by some crappy instructors. Appeal like crazy!
LOL that comment caught my eyes, too. in my ADN program, the LPN's were the one who aced all the exams without even studying. So no, it's actually the opposite - something so 'easy' that an LPN could pass it is actually saying it's a very hard item.
this smells like a scam to me. Yeah we had our share of people not making it, but nowhere near half the class, let alone, the entire class.
Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.
I am a former educator. In my nursing class, we had a test question that 35 out 36 people got wrong. That is a TEACHING issue, not a learning issue.
I was constantly telling administration that there was something wrong with the curriculum when we would take NLN practice tests that predicted a >95% of passing the NCLEX yet were barely passing the class. The discrepancy was too great. We kept getting told to "study harder" well the text book contradicted itself. We would go through every test question on every test and close to 1/3 of the questions had different "best" answers and/or there was contradictory information in the text and then notes that were taken or recorded (we were allowed to record lectures).
It was a huge fiasco. We were one of those overachieving classes. More of us were over 35 than under and over half already had a BS/BA degree and several, including me, had master's degrees.
We all studied, we all were smart but the tests did not match out ability. We started out with 70+ students and ended up with less than 30. we all had jobs before graduation and we all passed first try.
There was a HUGE overhaul to the program after us. I think there is one instructor left out of 8-9.
If is ok to professionally question your faculty; ask for rationales but be realistic when challenging tests/questions. You may have to get the Dean involved. We did. Don't give up and don't be intimidated by them. As a student in my 40s and my level of education matched theirs, albeit in different field, I was not afraid to have an adult conversation with them.
jetsy62
143 Posts
This school will not have a graduating nursing class then? I would think they would not want that kind of publicity. Read your student handbook and go up the chain. Something is very wrong.