Teaching Nursing (and Other Traditionally Taught Courses) Online

Presenter:

Kathleen Ronca, Assistant Professor, Nursing, Allied Health Department; & Sarah L. Hoiland, Assistant Professor, Behavioral and Social Sciences Department, Hostos Community College

Abstract:

Nationwide, nursing is one of the few areas of study that has not fully embraced online learning. Many faculty are unsure of how to approach the process of converting courses to hybrid or zasynchronous modalities. Students’ lack of online readiness has been shown to be a major roadblock for those who enroll in an online class for the first time and even for subsequent online courses, and this is particularly acute for urban community college students. Students in Hostos’s newly hybrid NUR228 course will have access through Blackboard to a host of course materials including chapter-specific PowerPoints and NCLEX-based case studies. Converting the assessment in the F2F course to the online course includes the addition of weekly low stakes quizzes and collaborative study groups to the online module. Online integrity is maintained through the randomization of test questions and answers in the Blackboard environment. Blending both the traditional classroom-based F2F learning environment with the online learning environment will stimulate allied health students to delve deep into the subject material while having the ability to structure learning at their own pace over the seven-day class week. Hostos’s Online Institute provides a semester of best-practices workshops for online course developers struggling with the challenges of conversion. The 16 Hostos EdTech team and an experienced faculty mentor work together to provide wraparound support during development. The mentoring continues into the first semester that the course is being taught. The presenters will share the cross-disciplinary mentoring model as well as successes & challenges encountered during development.