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Hi LanaWRN, Have you considered any of the nursing education journal publications? I subscribe to The Journal of Nursing Education and they provide CE offerings in each issue. I am sure most journals related to nursing education would do the same. Hope this helps.

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!

Hi rn3052, I started my teaching career in a high school-based CNA program. It was an opportunity to work at the same school my children attended and I was not sure what to expect. The program was intense, but I enjoyed it so much that this led me to pursue higher education. During the summers, I would sub for instructors in the LPN program. I think this as a wonderful opportunity to instill a love for nursing in others. I suggest you ask whether the program runs year round and what the overall pass rates are for those programs. You want to make sure you are associating yourself with a stable program. Check to see if your state has a mandatory maximum for CNA and LPN clinical groups. Find out what the typical group size is for the school you are interested in. I found that as a clinical instructor in FL, the clinical groups were a max of 15. This was difficult to manage because I had students on multiple units at one time. I had to be creative to supervise and assist with skills. Hope this helps. Best of luck!

Hi Morrisey fan, We incorporated low and high fidelity simulation stations into the lab sessions. We included a short vignette with a patient scenario so that they were not just practicing skills, but they were also working on soft skills such as introducing themselves and time management. We incorporated peer evaluation (formative eval) and even had one station where they could have someone video record the skill for the student to self evaluate later. The sessions became more interactive and all were more engaged. Hope this helps to spark other ideas.

I agree with the comments and suggestions from pro-student in terms of looking at your end game. If I may also suggest that you look for the possibility of teaching as an adjunct clinical instructor. Many colleges of nursing use adjunct faculty as a pool form which to choose full time faculty. I also suggest that you look into who is teaching those courses you are interested in and look at their credentials.

I've been with PSA since February of this year. My office is in Ft Myers, but we cover 7 counties! I also work part-time since I have 3 kids & I'm trying to finish my BSN. PSA has been awesome, they are flexible & let me pick only as many or few pts as I want. There is an article in Advance for Nurses (April 26) that covers the basics. They have private duty shifts as well as single visits. In our area, we are the only HHA that sees only peds. Our office is small, but the census is growing as we become better known in the area. I am satisfied that they have been true to their promise of letting me work only as much as I want. Can't beat it! Hope this has been helpful!