Instructional Website and Learner Engagement

Today I worked on the Wiki assignment for class. I don't know why I cannot wrap my head around this assignment. My group members are great and they are putting some excellent information on our Best Practices category. I have looked at so many resources everything seems to be running together. Maybe I should look at it as a "good thing" instead of a "bad thing." It means the information is overlapping thus demonstrating similar or like perspectives on what what makes an instructional website good. I decided to concentrate on learner engagement. Motivation in an online course is very important and creating a stimulating learning environment can be challenging and fun. I just need to keep an open mind on "fun" learning rather than "required" activities.

Nursing education is behind the times. We have not progressed far from teacher-centered instruction. Much of what we do as nurse educators is too much of "what we do" instead of promotion of active learning. In order to establish lifelong learning, we must engage our students in subject matter. We must promote active learning. We need to move away from "PowerPoint" lecture to creating an interactive learning environment. Online learning puts more of the responsibility of learning on the learner.

Suggestions for Active Learning Activities in Online Nursing Courses (blended or asynchronous)

• Case Study Analysis: Present a client scenario and develop open-ended questions connected to learning objectives
• Reflective Writing Assignment: Assign students to write reflections following the clinical experience (what went well, what did not go so well, what will you do differently next time...)
• Journaling: Assign students to keep an ongoing journal of medications he/she administered during the clinical experience and relate the medication to specific pathophysiology and benefits to individual patients
• WebQuest: Develop a WebQuest to explore issues significant in professional clinical nursing practice
• Discussion Threading: Create discussion threads requiring students to apply learned concepts from assigned readings and learning activities
• Blogging: Create a classroom blog and encourage students to share thoughts and feelings on certain "affect-driven" topics like death, pain control, HIV status, etc.
• Affective Response Activities: Developing empathy: create a scenario to role-play various members of the healthcare team interacting with a patient and family members in a healthcare situation
• Return Demonstration: Teach students to perform a head-to-toe assessment on a patient and require a video return demonstration
• Leading Questions: Foster socratic thinking by asking "What if?" questions
• Brainstorming: Present a clinical issue or topic and encourage students to brainstorm possible solutions
• Concept Mapping: Assign students to create a concept map demonstrating relationships between patient pathophysiology and the medical treatment plan