Facilitating diversity of thought in learning environments for nursing students.

Human capital development is one of the goals of higher education and a decrease in open dialogue threatens these ideals and aspirations. A recent survey of undergraduate students showed that many students censor their point of view. There are many potential reasons for this, but it could be secondary to the current sociopolitical climate. Having educators who encourage and model open dialogue while supporting diversity of thought would provide alternative perspectives and innovation. Encouraging diversity of thought will enhance understanding of other's perspectives and unleash creative problem solving to address concerns in nursing practice and facilitate innovative research. The purpose of this article is to present strategies that can be employed to promote diversity of thought among nursing students in a learning environment. Exemplars are presented illustrating some of the strategies discussed.

Making explicit the development of PhD-prepared nurses to steward the discipline.

Leadership is a core curricular element of PhD programs in nursing. Our PhD faculty began a dialogue about being a leader, a steward of the discipline. We asked ourselves: (a) What expertise do PhD prepared nurse needs to begin to steward the discipline? (b) How do faculty engage PhD nursing students to assume responsibility for stewarding the discipline? Lastly, (c) How do we work with PhD nursing students to create their vision for how their work contributes to stewarding the discipline, from doctoral coursework throughout their career? We support the need for PhD graduates to have the skills to generate knowledge, conserve that which is important, and transform by disseminating new knowledge to a broad audience. Examples of nurses stewarding the discipline when pioneering research, critiquing traditional approaches to inquiry or trends in nursing practice, and developing policy, are highlighted along with examples of how PhD nursing students begin to steward the discipline.

Implementing a competency-based electronic portfolio in a graduate nursing program.

Use of electronic portfolios (e-portfolios) has been advocated to demonstrate nursing student accomplishments as well as to document program and course outcomes. This use of e-portfolios incorporates information technology, thus aligning the educational process in professional degree programs to 21st-century teaching and learning scholarship. Here we describe a project to explore the feasibility of transitioning from documenting student competencies in hard-copy binders to e-portfolios. To make this transition in an efficient manner in our graduate nursing program, we used the Plan, Do, Study, Act quality-improvement model. An interdisciplinary team of nursing faculty and educational computing consultants developed a professional e-portfolio template and implemented a pilot program for 10 students enrolled in our nurse educator specialty. This program was executed by assessing university resources, evaluating the technological competence of both students and faculty, and through the interdisciplinary team members' commitment to provide ongoing support for the program.

Flexible online learning options for graduate nursing students.

Students juggle multiple roles and expect faculty to accommodate their hectic schedules. By increasing our flexibility and offering graduate nursing students the option, within a single course, of completing course activities either fully online or blended, we increased student enrollment into courses that prepare faculty. Our approach also identified a potentially cost-saving strategy for low enrollment course sections. Results underscore the importance of ongoing creativity to meet student expectations for responsiveness and inventiveness.