Annette Barnes

NONPF Annual Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Whether teaching in traditional classrooms or online settings, nurse educators across all academic levels are responsible for creating a pedagogical environment that facilitates student learning and attainment of desired cognitive, affective, and psychomotor outcomes (National League for Nursing, 2019). While online learning offers a flexible approach to advanced practice nursing education, maintaining strong student engagement and effective peer communication and collaboration can be challenging. Additionally, limited face-to-face contact with students and reliance on external preceptors’ evaluations present challenges for faculty to assess clinical competencies required in advanced practice nursing. Literature also suggests that students depend on their educational peers to succeed in social learning environments, and online courses are more efficacious when there is strong peer-to-peer interaction (Vlachapoulos & Makri, 2019). Therefore, collaboration is a significant contributor to successful learning and is best achieved through peer feedback (Carley, 2015). Nurse educators are tasked with developing innovative, online strategies that improve interactive learning opportunities and better prepare students for clinical practice. A collaborative clinical reasoning activity was developed in an online Advanced Health Assessment course for students in the Family Nurse Practitioner-Doctor of Nursing Practice (FNP-DNP) program. The purpose was to increase peer interaction and promote clinical decision-making in the FNP role. Students worked in small groups to provide feedback through threaded discussions. Each week, students served as presenters or collaborators. Presenters video-recorded a short patient overview and uploaded a clinical SOAP note, then collaborators reviewed the video and written documentation to identify opportunities for improvement. Through ongoing discussion and consensus, students collectively formulated differential diagnoses for the patient.

UMSON Institute for Educators Conference, Online/virtual