Faculty Q&A

Abstract

<table align="center" border="1" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" width="550"> <tbody><tr> <td><p></p><h3>Send in your questions for Faculty Q&A!</h3> <p>We want your questions not only about issues related to how to teach and instructional strategies, but also about other issues faced by faculty (both new and established). Here’s an example: </p> <p>“I was shocked to have a student accuse me of sexism. The student is male and says there is an inherent bias against male students, as I have answered questions posed to me by female students when we were in the change room preparing for a clinical shift. How can I guard against this type of unintentional problem in the future?” </p> <p><b>Here’s what you need to know: </b></p> <ol> <li> Questions need to be short and, preferably, include a specific scenario or examples.</li> <li>Submit questions that address practical issues faced by faculty and can be answered in a few paragraphs (see example above).</li><li>E-mail your questions, along with your full name and credentials, to Karen G. Stanwood, ELS, Executive Editor, at <a href="mailto:kstanwood@slackinc.com">kstanwood@slackinc.com</a>.</li></ol></br></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <h4>EXCERPT</h4> <P>With the increase in numbers of online and distance-learning master’s and doctoral programs for nurses, the faculty in our moderately small baccalaureate and RN-to-BSN completion program are being swamped with requests to be preceptors for local nurses needing close-to-home teaching and related field experiences as a component of their educational programs. Although we want to support the continuing education of these nurse colleagues, we do not have the resources to precept them in addition to our own teaching loads and other college obligations. How do you suggest we handle such requests without alienating future nurse educators, thereby possibly “cutting off our own hand” as the need for qualified nursing faculty continues to grow? We want to support their education but not at the risk of failing to meet the needs of our own student population.</P> <P>I teach in a graduate program that prepares students to be nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists. Faculty members visit the students in their clinical sites twice during the semester. Students receive a grade for their clinical practice on the basis of preceptor evaluation, faculty evaluation, and students’ self-evaluation. Although we have spent a great deal of time as a faculty on developing interrater reliability using the clinical evaluation tool, I’ve noticed that almost all of the students receive a grade of “A” in their clinical. Faculty members are unwilling to move to a pass/fail clinical evaluation, and it seems clear that there is significant grade inflation. How can we better differentiate between the A, B, and C student and address the grade inflation issue? </P> <P>My faculty is in the process of a major revision of the BSN curriculum. In reviewing the program objectives, several faculty members commented that the objectives should be rewritten to reflect outcomes not objectives. This has led to some debate with no resolution. I have always used the term objectives prefaced by the statement “by the end of the course (or program) the student will be able to _____.” Then in my course, I have used smaller, sub-objectives to detail what the student will be able to do at the end of a unit of study during the semester. Should we be using the term outcomes? Is there really a difference between outcomes and objectives?</P>