SALT LAKE CITY -- Nursing students will soon have more than just books to rely on when it comes to preparing for their licensure exams. Faculty at the University of Utah College of Nursing are developing educational videos with the help of Khan Academy, an education nonprofit.
A team from the College of Nursing recently submitted one of the winning entries of the new NCLEX-RN Content Competition, a collaboration between Khan Academy, the Jonas Center for Nursing Excellence, and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.
The five faculty members who worked on the video submission focusing on asthma included: Katie Baraki, R.N., nursing instructor; Madeline Lassche, R.N., nursing instructor; Pamela Hardin, R.N., Ph.D., associate professor; Amber Jackson, R.N., nursing instructor; and Sharifa Al-Qaaydeh, R.N., nursing instructor. Steve Cragun was the technical consultant. Baraki will represent the team in March at a week-long training at Khan in California.
She will use the training to help faculty develop additional videos. The team's winning entry will be used to help undergraduate nursing students in Utah this spring.
"The challenge with nursing education is there's always more content and concepts that are being added in," she said. "So having some additional, supplemental resource like the Khan Academy is really going to help nurses across the nation and world."
To create the winning submission, the team taught themselves how to use video software, develop storyboards and wrote scripts. The competition received nearly 100 entries from around the world.
"I think part of what's driving this are the advances in technology," said Hardin who is director of the Nursing Education Graduate Program.
The videos are intended to appeal to a wide variety of learning styles and help the students learn essentials before they come to class.
"I think the young learner of today is not like the learner of my generation who just did read a book," said Patricia Morton, R.N., Ph.D., dean of the University of Utah College of Nursing. "The learner today expects much more of an interactive approach to learning -- you might say more animated, lively, engaging more of your senses."
To view the videos submitted by the College of Nursing team, go to:
What is asthma: http://youtu.be/HS9shm0IQxU
Treatment: http://youtu.be/ZSMNXPlp9Xc