Registered nurses are the backbone of hospitals, nursing homes and other medical facilities across the United States as they lead a nursing team in providing around-the-clock care for sick or injured people. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, a 2008 report found that the U.S. could be facing a critical RN shortage of 500,000 by the year 2025. Colleges and universities are doing everything they can to help overcome this deficit by growing current nursing programs and expanding to online learning. As a nursing instructor, you might find yourself soon affected by this if you're required to teach online nursing.
Instructions
1. Learn the software being used. Many colleges and universities provide some type of training for instructors who are new to teaching classes online. If you find yourself teaching online nursing for the first time, you should make plans to attend training or meet one-on-one with the instructional technology department on your campus to learn set up and run your online classroom.
2. Upload the class information. Before the class begins, it is important that you upload the syllabus, lesson plans and assignments. Most software programs for online classes allow instructors to create start and end dates for assignments and tests, which makes them not accessible until you want them to be. You also need to include your contact information so students in your nursing class can get in touch with you when they have questions.
3. Provide lectures to students. You still need to provide the same education and training for nurses that is offered in traditional classrooms, which means that you need to find a way to provide lectures during the length of the course. You can choose to upload PowerPoint slides, notes or even videos of yourself presenting the lecture which students can complete at their own pace. If you have students doing labs or activities, try to show them what to do in a video since you aren't there to visually watch them and provide feedback.
4. Create labs students can do themselves. Some labs can be done by the student on their own, such as taking a person's blood pressure. However, for things that can't be, such as IV or catheter insertion, you need to arrange a time for the student to attend a lab setting and learn how certain medical procedures are done. This is a great time for you to see what the student has learned and retained while you provide feedback to help them.
5. Hold virtual office hours and encourage student interaction. Nursing students often have lots of questions about the information they are learning because it is complex. You may find it easier to hold virtual office hours a few times each week in which you are available in the online class chat room to answer student questions rather than respond to several emails. You can also encourage students to interact with each other by having a discussion board.
6. Arrange clinicals. While the classroom and some lab portions of nursing are able to be taught online, clinicals are something that students must do in person. You need to determine with your nursing department what type of clinicals you need to arrange for your students. Some schools allow students to do independent clincials at their own convenience through a local hospital or nursing home in their area while others arrange clinicals at a specific time and location that students must attend regardless of where they live.
7. Help students prepare for the National Council Licensure Examination. As the students near completion of the nursing program, it's important that you help them prepare for the NCLEX. This national exam is taken by nurses to get their licenses, and prospective students often look at a school's pass rate when determining whether to attend their nursing program. To get good, quality students in your future nursing classes, you need to help prepare students in your online nursing class to pass the test.
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