MSN in Nursing Education Online - Practicum?

Editorial Team / Admin · Oct 30, 2018

Whether you will have assistance or not in locating a preceptor will depend on the school. The program I attended did not actively provide preceptors, but did provide a list of facilities that had previously provided preceptorships. As the facility i worked in was one of the previous facilities, I had no issues. I worked with the local nursing school as well as my department. I did do a fair amount of simulation with the college and incorporated that into my final project in staff development.

anabrn · Oct 30, 2018

Congrats on making the decision to pursue your MSN in education! Most online programs will require that you find your own preceptor/mentor to guide you in completing an MSN Capstone Project. You will be looking for a preceptor who is MSN prepared or higher within the organization you work or intend on completing your project.

I suggest you try to pinpoint if you want to pursue academic education or clinical staff development as your end goal. That choice may help you focus on a potential mentor. If your end goal is academia, it would be beneficial to find a mentor/preceptor at a college or university. On the other hand, you would look towards a clinical educator if your goal is the clinical practice setting. Although these roles are similar in many ways, they are also very different....teaching entry into nursing versus teaching seasoned nurses.

An MSN is required for the role of nursing clinical instructor, but if you want to move into a university faculty role in the future, or attain tenure, a doctoral degree may be your long term goal.

Best of luck as you sift through the many choices available online!

allnurses Guide · Oct 30, 2018

I got my MSN in education via WGU. I had a Masters prepared nurse educator involved with me all through my program and particularly when doing my literature review and for my capstone at the end. I selected this individual myself via my employer at the time. I am now employed in professional development at a major top-tier hospital, well prepared for my role and enjoying it very much.

Editorial Team / Moderator · Oct 31, 2018

One of my classmates helped teach an online course at our school as her practicum project because that was her goal: teaching online, and she is doing just that. It is in addition to a regular full-time job, but we both teach online now and it's nice to have a little extra income! As far as pay goes, academia tends to pay less than hospital education positions where I am. I work as a clinical nurse educator in a hospital.

Good luck on your educational journey! :)

nurse2033, MSN, RN · Jan 27, 2019

I had to find my own preceptor. I cold called a number of institutions and found one without any problem. It also gave me a lot of flexibility in my Capstone, and it went great. Good luck.

dudette10, MSN, RN · Feb 4, 2019

On 10/29/2018 at 6:45 PM, fsaleif said:
However I have a question about how practicum works at these online universities. I was told by a past nursing instructor that this practicum/residency/immersion experience is one of the most important aspects to a good MSN education. How does this work if you're obtaining your degree online in a different state? Do they seek out these experiences for you? Do you seek them out yourself at your worksite?
Does anyone have experience with this? I'm planning on narrowing down my top universities and then reaching out to people at these universities to ask but was wondering if anyone had any insight into this themselves/some anecdotal information.

I earned my online nursing education degree from a brick-and-mortar in another state that had been around for more than 100 years. I had an excellent nursing education experience. I secured my own academic rotation and clinical educator rotation through networking.

I would suggest that you change the questions you are asking, actually. Do the practicum experiences require deliverables? For example, in my academic rotation, I had to create a lesson plan, deliver a week's worth of didactic, and document my activities for clinical supervision. For my clinical educator rotation, I had to design and deliver an in-service. Everything was recorded and I sent the video file to my instructor. We also had an online component where we took a section of the CNE review book and created a course module on it, complete with lecture, activities, assignments, and grading rubrics for online learning.

I ask that because I'm currently precepting a student in online nursing education, and she is not required to do anything for her academic rotation! There is no way I can evaluate her on the NE competencies with her just shadowing me all the time! So, I am requiring her to design a lesson plan and deliver one of my classes. In my opinion, her school is failing her.