Speaker 1: When we're able to attend conferences, it's an opportunity for us to learn from our nurse educator colleagues, to network, and to have a little bit of fun. It's the perfect mix between fun and learning. Active engagement in the learning classroom is also one of those evidence-based practices that we continue to hear a lot about at conferences. If you are attending the NLN Summit, the ATI Summit that will be in the beginning of the year, or even the ODIN Conference, these are all professional organizations that provide evidence-based content through their conferences every single year. If you haven't attended one of these, I highly encourage you to consider it as you think about expanding your knowledge on a national level. Welcome back, everybody, to Dr. Sellers Educate. We're happy that you're here as we continue to explore topics that are related to the NLN nurse educator competencies. If you haven't taken a look at those competencies, I want you to go ahead and write this down right now using the study worksheet that hopefully you've already printed out, as that is part of our discussion that we have every single week right here on our YouTube channel. The study worksheet is going to allow you to stay focused on your journey. All right, so going back to the blueprint, which outlines all of the subcompetency statements that we're expected to demonstrate in our work that we do with our students. So you're going to go to the NLN.org website, and you're going to click on whichever certification you are exploring, C&E, C&E Novice, or C&E Clinical, and then you're going to print out the actual handbook, the candidate handbook. In each of those candidate handbooks is a blueprint, an exam blueprint that lists out all of those eight competencies if you are taking the C&E or C&E Novice, and then six competencies if you are taking the C&E Clinical. Now, you may ask, why is it that we want you to print this out? That's an excellent question. Well, for those of you that are on the journey for C&E, this is going to be your roadmap that we will use with you to support you on your journey. If you're not on the journey for C&E, this is still really good information for you to be mindful of as you're moving forward with your accreditation or your Board of Nursing compliance reports that most boards of nursing require, and this is why. When you look at nurse educator competencies, NLN has really established that standard for all of us to align our teaching strategies with, our evaluation practices, and ultimately, how we manage and support student outcomes in achieving our program goals or our program outcomes, all right? So, that's why it's so important for you to join us every single week right here on during our snapshot, because we provide some really good information to help you on your journey, no matter which path you are on. Now, the resources that we want you to use for this snapshot, there's going to be two. So, Billings and Homestead Teaching and Nursing, we're in the sixth edition because this is the one that NLN is still using if you're watching this snapshot live for their C&E exam, so a couple of pages we want to point out. First and foremost is going to be chapter one. This is going to help you take a deeper dive in exploring exactly what are these nurse educator behaviors that we're talking about. The global umbrella of teaching and nursing can be very broad, and we want you to stay focused as you move forward. All right, so chapter one is going to give you a really good introduction, and then chapter two is going to talk about how do we engage with our learners. What are some of those evidence-based teaching strategies that we want to use to help guide the teaching plans that we are developing? So, chapter one and two for this snapshot are the two main chapters that we want you to focus on in Billings and Homestead. And then the second resource is going to be Dr. Caputi's review book. I know most of you already have it, but this is the review book. And then this is Billings and Homestead sixth edition. Some of you may have the seventh edition. There is a crosswalk that is actually posted right here on our YouTube channel, okay? And then for Dr. Caputi's review book, we want you to read chapter one and chapter two to give you a really solid foundation as you are exploring the topics that we are discussing in this snapshot. All right, so for this snapshot, we're looking at exactly that. What are some of the strategies that we're talking about when we are thinking about how do we best support our students? And ultimately, how do we engage in lifelong learning? Well, this is what we know about lifelong learning. First and foremost, it takes a commitment, right? We know that in our nursing programs, we establish a foundation with the MSN program. And then we're able to build on that as we move through our nurse educator journey, okay? So, we start with that MSN in nursing education. Although it's not a requirement, I know most of us do. And then we transition into our careers. This is going to give us a really good opportunity to apply the concepts that we learn about in our nursing program. But that's only the beginning. What our lifelong learning commitment looks like is engaging in these practices that we're going to explore to include conferences, to include engagement in scholarly work, right? So, we've talked about scholarship of teaching and learning in previous snapshots. And we'll continue to explore that content in our fall series boot camp. And also, third is going to be that peer mentoring, where we're either serving as a mentor or we're being mentored by another colleague that is going to help us advance our teaching strategies to become an even more effective educator in the classroom. Lifelong learning, we want to be able to demonstrate these behaviors that we're going to explore. It allows us and really equips us with the information we need to evolve our nursing practices over time. We're able to enhance and really to foster these teaching practices that we're talking about with our students in the classroom and that we're also sharing with our peers. This is the value of engaging in these lifelong learning practices. The role for professional development is for us to continuously be plugged in or connected to our professional organizations. Many of us may be members, active members of NLN or maybe AACN, or you may be accredited as a provider by ANCC, or you could belong as an individual to the ODIN organization. Whatever that professional organization is for you, go ahead and write this down as a takeaway. I want you to go to their website. I want you to log in, and I want you to identify at least one upcoming continuing education, professional development activity or opportunity that they have listed right there on their site. And then I want you to put it on your calendar, okay? Now, I know AACN has a long list of resources. So, if you're a member, this is a great way for you to go ahead and tap into their resource, but other organizations have resources as well, okay? But I do want you to already use what you have available to you through your active membership in these professional organizations. All right, so that's step number one, homework for you is to engage in this professional development opportunity that we're talking about. Some upcoming conferences, we know we have the NLN Summit that's coming up. The ODIN Conference, as I mentioned, ATI has a conference every year. The ANCC, NCPD Conference is coming up as well. These are all great opportunities for us to network and to really reset, okay? So, that's what I like to talk about is resetting, taking the time to connect with colleagues in person and to share these evidence-based practices that we're talking about, not only for teaching, but also for our role as a nurse educator. We talk a lot about competency-based education and curriculum, and there are so many resources that we can tap into while we're at a conference to talk through what are the next steps that we need to take, and asking them, what were some of the barriers that got in the way? How did you overcome those barriers? And then we also have the DNPs of color. That's another great conference where colleagues are going to come together. They're going to talk about evidence-based practices, and they're going to network and compare notes and also think about what are some goals or objectives that I as an individual nurse educator want to achieve? Perhaps the person that's at that conference could be in the same session as you, has already crossed that bridge, has already received that promotion, is already tenured. Tapping into what they did on their journey is only going to help you feel more confident as you move forward on your journey, and also, it will help you with your competence because you will know exactly what steps that they took. And then now we want to talk a little bit about what is going to be defined or really quantified as your networking opportunities. How do you engage in networking? So first of all, bring your business cards, okay? So if you don't have business cards right now, go ahead and order them. Now is the time, as I'm sure many of you will be attending conferences. And what you want to do is be able to exchange that business card, all right? And then I'll share one other tip related to the business card. Flip it over on the back or even on the front and write down what conference you attended where you met this person. And also, write down the date, okay, the actual date of the conference where you met them. And then the third part is the actual city and state. Because what you want to be able to do, especially if it's a colleague that you want to partner with in the future, you want to email them as a follow-up to remind them of your connection and where it occurred. Because some of us go to several conferences a year. And this is going to help them recall and remember exactly what your conversation was like. All right, so that's one other takeaway is to go ahead and order those business cards or get those printed if you need them to be printed so you will be ready when time comes for you to exchange information. All right, so let's take a look at this thought-provoking question and see what you think about this. Supporting the needs of diverse learners is the responsibility of the nurse educator. Which of the following teacher strategies most effectively facilitates learning in a diverse student population by fostering critical thinking and deep understanding? All right, so we have A, traditional lecture format, B, problem-based learning, or C, standardized testing. The two topics we want you to consider every single time you see a question on the C&E exam, number one, what is this question really asking me, okay? And then number two, what is it that I know for sure? So I'm going to give you all a second to take a look at this thought-provoking question. And then one other point I want to make is colleagues ask us all the time about which practice questions or quiz questions they should use to help them get ready. Well, we make the same recommendation that NLN has advised us to follow, and that is focus on the content. If you do have test anxiety, we do recommend the NLN self-assessment exam because it's going to serve two purposes. Number one, it's going to get you more accustomed to computerized questions. And then number two, it's also going to give you rationale for the correct answers and the incorrect answers. Now, if you don't have test anxiety, we've only seen about a 50-50 split when it comes to colleagues telling us the value of the SAE. But if you do have test anxiety, that is a group of colleagues we do recommend the SAE for, okay? So you can consider whether or not you want to purchase that resource directly from NLN. Lifelong learning also allows us to tailor our teaching strategies. Remember, that's the topic of this snapshot. What is our role? What is our responsibility when we think about lifelong learning? Engaging and really validating these evidence-based teaching practices are going to empower us with the tools and resources we need to provide these diverse learning experiences for our students. We know that all students learn differently. We want to be able to help students identify how they learn best. We can engage in this practice by providing a VARC assessment for them, a Learning Styles Inventory Tool. You can find that right here in the description. It's free, and it does two things. Number one, it helps students identify how do I learn best or what is my dominant learning preference now? Secondly, it allows us to know who's in the room. So if we see 50% of our students are kinesthetic learners, then we know they may struggle, right, if we only lecture. But we already know that we engage in evidence-based teaching practices, which says that we don't want to be that sage on the stage, right? We want to be that guide on the side. We want to be that coach to help close the loop for students and help them bridge that theory-to-practice gap that we know Patricia Benner talks about in her work. What else do you want to consider? COBE's Experiential Learning Theory. We learn through doing. That's what the theory says. We want to engage students in the reflective practice so that they can consider what worked well, what didn't work well, and what am I going to do differently next time this experience presents itself to me. Practical application. Clinical practice starts in the classroom. We want to engage in using different technologies to help students practice these clinical skills that they are going to need in the clinical setting. Speaking of technology, we talk about active engagement and fostering of student engagement. Well, our ability to do that really requires students to put their hands in motion, right? We want to engage because we know that's critical, thinking about COBE's Experiential Learning Theory, thinking about Malcolm Knoll's Adult Learning Theory. We want our nursing students to have interactive activities so that we can validate that learning has happened. Embracing technology is going to allow us to do this. We want to make sure that we're knowledgeable about the technology first, and then we can use it effectively in our classroom. There are so many different e-learning platforms. Use the resources that we have. We're going to support our diverse student learner even if they are challenged in using technology by giving them resources to help them move through that learning experience that we want them to have. All right, so let's take a look at the thought-provoking question. If you chose B, you are correct. Many of our students are struggling in the classroom. We want to be able to bridge that theory practice gap by equipping ourselves with the lifelong learning skills that we need in order to be confident and competent in the classroom. We hope this snapshot has been helpful, and we look forward to seeing you next time. Have a great one, everybody.