Flipping the Classroom: Strategies for Psychiatric-Mental Health Course.

Experiences over 2 years substantiate the value of the pedagogical shift of "flipping the classroom" as an effective strategy in preparing students for didactic and clinical experiences in a psychiatric-mental health nursing course. This article describes strategies used to flip the classroom in the course. Student perceptions of the changed pedagogy and implications for nurse educators are presented.

Connecting in distance mentoring: communication practices that work.

BACKGROUND: As nursing and healthcare become more global, supported by technology, the opportunities for distance mentoring increase. Mentorship is critical to nurse educator recruitment and retention. STUDY OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to identify communication practices of nurse educators involved in mentoring at a distance. DESIGN/SETTINGS: A qualitative design, utilizing in-person or telephone interviews was used. Participants were twenty-three protégés or mentors who were part of a yearlong distance mentoring program. ANALYSIS METHOD: An iterative process of hermeneutic analysis identified three themes; this paper focuses on the theme of connectedness. RESULTS: Participant narratives illuminate practices of connecting at a distance: meeting face-to-face, sharing personal information, experiencing reciprocity, journaling, being vulnerable, establishing one's presence, and appreciating different perspectives. CONCLUSION: Distance does not appear to limit the connecting potential leading to a meaningful mentoring relationship; rather, it offers possibilities that local mentoring relationships may not. Nurse educators in under-resourced countries, those in small programs without a cadre of senior faculty, and students in distance programs are among those who stand to benefit from distance mentoring relationships.

Geriatrics in simulation: role modeling and clinical judgment effect.

Clinical judgment development is critical to preparing students to safely meet the needs of an aging population. Evidence linking manikin-based simulation and clinical judgment is sparse.The purpose of this quasi-experimental international study was to determine the effect of expert role modeling on nursing students' clinical judgment in the care of a simulated geriatric hip fracture client. Students from five diverse schools (n = 275) participated in an unfolding simulation. Students were assigned to treatment or control groups.Treatment groups viewed an expert role model video.Trained observers rated student clinical judgment from selected video recordings using the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric (n = 94). Significant group differences (p = .000) were found for the clinical judgment dimensions of noticing, interpreting, and responding. Findings provide support for combining expert role modeling with clinical simulation to improve students' clinical judgment in the care of older adults.

Best practices in academic mentoring: a model for excellence.

Mentoring is important for the recruitment and retention of qualified nurse faculty, their ongoing career development, and leadership development. However, what are current best practices of mentoring? The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of a model for excellence in establishing a formal mentoring program for academic nurse educators. Six themes for establishing a formal mentoring program are presented, highlighting best practices in mentoring as culled from experience and the literature. Themes reflect aims to achieve appropriately matched dyads, establish clear mentorship purpose and goals, solidify the dyad relationship, advocate for and guide the protégé, integrate the protégé into the academic culture, and mobilize institutional resources for mentoring support. Attending to the six themes will help mentors achieve important protégé outcomes, such as orientation to the educator role, integration into the academic community, development of teaching, scholarship, and service skills, as well as leadership development. The model is intended to be generalizable for faculty teaching in a variety of academic nursing institution types and sizes. Mentoring that integrates the six themes assists faculty members to better navigate the academic environment and more easily transition to new roles and responsibilities.

A digital toolkit to implement and manage a multisite study.

Calls for multisite studies are increasing in nursing education. However, the challenge of implementing consistent protocols and maintaining rigorous standards across sites can be daunting. One purpose of a recent multisite, collaborative, simulation study was to evaluate a digital toolkit's effectiveness for managing a multisite study. We describe the digital toolkit composed of Web-based technologies used to manage a study involving five sites including one United Kingdom site. The digital toolkit included a wiki, a project Web site to coordinate the protocols and study materials, software to organize study materials, and a secure location for sharing data. Most of these are familiar tools; however, combined as a toolkit, they became a useful management system. Web-based communication strategies and coordinated technical support served as key adjuncts to foster collaboration. This article also offers practical implications and recommendations for using a digital toolkit in other multisite studies.

A collaborative project to apply and evaluate the clinical judgment model through simulation.

As use of simulations increases in nursing education, nurse educators are challenged to evaluate students' clinical judgment skills. The purpose of this article is to describe faculty development in the use of the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric (LCJR); faculty application of LCJR in evaluating students' clinical judgment skills during a simulation scenario; and faculty and students' perception transference from the simulation to the clinical setting.Tanner's Clinical Judgment Model was used in an assigned adult health simulation. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from faculty and student evaluations and students' reflective statements. Findings support the importance of simulation's contribution to clinical judgment development. However, more work remains to improve the integration of clinical judgment and use of a conceptual framework and evidence-based rubric. For long-term change, both faculty and students need ongoing practice and encouragement in applying the clinical judgment framework to clinical and simulation experiences. For application of the model, a recommendation is to incorporate the clinical judgment language into course syllabi, course assignments, and evaluations.

Assessment and early diagnosis of dysphagia.

Dysphagia is defined as difficulty in swallowing food (semi-solid or solid), liquid, or both. Neurological, muscular, anatomical, and/or psychological factors may predispose a person to difficulty in swallowing. Difficulty in swallowing or dysphagia can lead to serious complications including aspiration pneumonia, malnutrition, and death if not diagnosed early. Health care providers who are knowledgeable in assessing and diagnosing individuals with or at risk for dysphagia can in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team ameliorate the complications of dysphagia and optimize outcomes through focused interventions. In addition, health care costs would be reduced through decreased need for hospitalization, length of stay when hospitalized, and overall health care expenditures. This article provides a review of the epidemiology of dysphagia, the normal swallowing process, pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, and diagnostics. Implications for practice also are discussed.

Validation of critical thinking skills in online responses.

Although nursing accreditation bodies have recognized critical thinking as a significant outcome for graduates at the baccalaureate and master's levels, no consensus exists on its definition and measurements. In addition, schools of nursing that are completely online do not agree on how to evaluate critical thinking in online responses. This study explains the development of a 10-item tool that uses a Likert scale to evaluate critical thinking skills in students' online responses in three master's-level courses in a nursing school in the midwestern United States. The developed tool has adequate reliability coefficients, as measured by Pearson's r and Cronbach's alpha. The critical thinking skills of the tested students were adequate in the areas of analysis and synthesis but needed improvement in the evaluation domain.