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Saturday, April 13, 2013: 11:40 AM
Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to define a peer coaching program for graduating senior and incoming junior nursing students.
Learning Objective 2: the learner will be able to describe the benefits of a peer coaching program for graduating senior and incoming junior nursing students.
The complexity of patient care challenges nurse educators to develop new approaches to clinical education that foster communication, decision-making and critical reasoning skills of students. A student peer coaching program, carried out within clinical courses for an undergraduate baccalaureate nursing program will be presented. The program has been shown to enhance: communication, delegation skills, clinical judgment, clinical reasoning, and professionalism for first-semester clinical nursing students and graduating senior nursing students. The aforementioned areas address key elements of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Essentials for Baccalaureate Education (2008). Skillful communication between teammates and co-workers is becoming less effective among novice and experienced nurses. This peer coaching program promotes skilled communication within nursing, as well as interdisciplinary. Each semester the peer coaching program consists of clinical groups of eight first-semester baccalaureate nursing students, a faculty instructor, and one to three graduating senior nursing students. A coaching model versus a mentoring model was selected because coaching is more encompassing and includes mentoring as well as teaching. Under the supervision of a faculty member, senior nursing students coach junior level nursing students during patient care. Qualitative and quantitative data collected over previous semesters indicate that there are benefits for student participants at both the junior and senior levels. One hundred and twenty rubrics were distributed over both semesters, 63 were completed and returned for fall 2011, and 47 for spring 2012. Faculty members report favorable outcomes associated with the peer coaching program. During this presentation, details of the program and research findings will be described. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and interject new ideas for further development of this peer coaching program.