The development of a model of education for casual academic staff who support nursing students in practice.

Nursing is predominantly a practice based profession where clinical placement for pre-registration nursing students is a significant component of their programme, as this is pivotal in achieving work readiness of the graduate registered nurse. It is therefore important to ensure nursing students have high quality clinical placements that are supervised by well-prepared experienced registered nurses. This paper discusses one component of the reconnaissance phase of a wider action research project being undertaken in a metropolitan university in NSW, Australia seeking to enhance the development and support of casual academic staff known as clinical supervisors who support students in clinical placement. The outcomes attributed to this project are the development of a participation model which has resulted in a collaborative partnership between the university and clinical supervisors and secondly, the embedding of solution focused ways of working and practice development into the program. The information from the reconnaissance phase of this project confirms the need for further research into the implementation of the participatory model to ensure that future education and support process are developed through collaboration.

Unlocking reflective practice for nurses: innovations in working with master of nursing students in Hong Kong.

Being reflective is well established as an important conduit of practice development, a desirable tertiary graduate quality and a core competency of health professional membership. By assisting students to be more effective in their ability to reflect, they are better able to formulate strategies to manage issues experienced within a professional context, which ultimately assists them to be better service providers. However, some students are challenged by the practice of reflection and these challenges are even more notable for international students. This paper presents a teaching initiative that focused specifically on enhancing the capacity of an international cohort of nursing students, to engage in reflective practice. The initiative centered on an evaluation of a reflective practice core subject, which was taught in a Master of Nursing programme delivered in Hong Kong. A learning-centered framework was used to evaluate the subject and identify innovative strategies that would better assist international students to develop reflective practices. The outcomes of curriculum and teaching analysis and proposed changes and innovations in teaching practice to support international students are presented and discussed.