271061 Teaching community/public health nursing online: An unfolding case study approach

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Gail Petersen Hock, MS, RN, PHCNS-c , RN to BSN Concentration, Arizona State University College of Nursing and Health Innovation, Phoenix, AZ
Background/Issues: The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) reports 650 RN-BSN programs in the United States with the majority of programs delivered in online or hybrid formats. The AACN Baccalaureate Essential VII: Clinical Prevention and Population Health demonstrates the importance of curriculum related to population health as an integral component of a baccalaureate generalist practice. Online/hybrid delivery poses challenges to the educator to engage students located in diverse geographies while transitioning to the digital classroom. Description: Students, living nationwide, travel online through a 4 credit course over 7.5 weeks with a virtual family designed to facilitate engagement in the core values of Community/Population as Client, Prevention, Partnership, Healthy Environment and Diversity. The virtual family “lives” in each student's zip code with unfolding case studies serving as basis for discussion boards, written assignments and practical application activities grounding theory and engaging students in the communities the students reside in. Lessons Learned: Positive student feedback related to understanding prevention based on local community resources and using “real” epidemiologic data to plan local interventions encourages faculty to develop cases that support course learning outcomes. Rich dialogue among students also brings understanding of disparate health policies and resources across geographies. Recommendations: Faculty experiences provide a rich resource base for the development of virtual families and unfolding case studies promoting analytical and critical thinking skills in the student populations served. Tapping into this resource and developing successful, innovative online teaching conserves funding while improving ability to reach distant students with meaningful community/public health courses.

Learning Areas:
Public health or related education
Public health or related nursing

Learning Objectives:
1. to identify personal nursing experiences for use in designing casestudies for use in hybrid/online community/public health nursing courses.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a certified Public Health Clinical Nurse Specialist. I have been developing and delivering community/public health curriculum in an online/hybrid environment since 2008.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.