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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Karen H. Teeley, MS, RN, AHN-C, School for Health Studies, Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston, MA 02071, 617-521-2536, teeley@simmons.edu

Faced with increasing nursing class sizes and expanding content requirements, a hybrid web design presents possibilities as a solution to both of these problems. This presentation describes the author's experience in developing a “hybrid” course for an undergraduate community health nursing course. The hybrid design combines both the traditional classroom setting and on-line class content using the WebCt platform. Among other successful outcomes, this format has resulted in engaged, interested students who are able to connect their clinical experiences with their classroom content on a weekly basis. Students who otherwise would not speak up in class have an opportunity to share their experiences and insights on structured message boards. Material is available on-line to students before classroom meetings which result in less lecture time and more discussion and exploration time in the classroom. A major feature of the on-line components is the structure of small discussion groups to allow for meaningful discussion in the specific modules. One of the keys to this successful model has been the inclusion of clinical nursing faculty as discussion facilitators. Each clinical faculty oversees 6-7 students in the community clinical setting and participates in the on-line component to facilitate the students' discussion postings. This has an added benefit of connecting the clinical faculty to the didactic component of the course, which enhances the student's engagement and participation. This hybrid design is presently in its third revision; the realistic challenges of re-designing a community health nursing course for the web will be presented and discussed.

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