Stuck in bad nursing school- self study tips needed

Nursing Students General Students

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Its official, my nursing school is a bad one. The instructors barely show up and none of us trust the online homework (sherpath). They are all new untested instructors and we are all struggling. Some of us have decided to form a self study group to try and fill in gaps on our own that are being missed by our instructors. Does anybody have advice for us? We were thinking of starting by going over and over NCLEX books and online questions as well as just filling in the obvious gaps the instructors just skip. I thought maybe we could get a tutor. Ideas welcome. Trying to turn frustration into action.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

The plain truth is - education is a completely separate discipline, with it's own set of skills and knowledge. It's not something that 'just happens' as part of graduate education. In fact, most MSN programs have very little content that is relevant for educators - even those that claim to be an MSN in education.... like the program I attended. Nursing schools need to orient and train new instructors and provide them with experienced faculty mentors. The well-established traditional schools do this very well. Commercial schools (for profit, investor owned) schools do not. They do the minimum required for accreditation because they don't want to decrease profits. As a consequence, faculty do not stay very long... which leads to even more turnover.

There is no quick fix here. Is the Dean/Director of the program aware of this dire situation? If you are organizing 'extra-curricular' study efforts, I think that engaging the services of a qualified tutor/facilitator would be wise. Otherwise, you may be vulnerable to problems due to misinterpreting essential pieces of information.

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Thanks- yes that is what I am thinking re: tutors. The director of the nursing department seems frustrated but we haven't yet expressed our complete frustration. Maybe once the quarter settles down we will.

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Also this is a community college ADN program, but with all new staff after the last group quit en masse. Bad sign, I know, but moving to another school wasn't really an option for any of us as our school is pretty rural.

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