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Learning Objective 1: ...describe a national collaboration of expert faculty and state-of-the-art training sites in simulated learning, informatics, and telehealth to train faculty for nursing education and practice.
Learning Objective 2: ...apply results of the ELITE program to nurse educator needs related to technology integration in the nursing curriculum.
The Emerging Learning and Integrated Technologies Education (ELITE) Faculty Development Program trains nurse educators in the use of technology for nursing education and practice. The ELITE Program’s face-to-face and online workshops accelerate educator’s skill acquisition and technology integration into the nursing curriculum.
Methods:
A nation-wide collaboration of technology experts from five national institutions develop workshop content and practice opportunities for nurse educators based on best-evidence in technology research and practice. The collaborators are experts in one of five areas: learning technologies, telehealth, distance education, nursing informatics, and simulation.
Results:
Since 2007, the ELITE workshops trained over 450 nurse educators from 62 institutions potentially impacting 224,550 students. The Program distributed over 4,900 continuing education units through 29 workshops. Participants completed assessment instruments prior to the ELITE Program’s workshops. Nurse educators (n=167) responded on a 1-5 Likert scale, 5 as highest, that their interest (overall mean 4.21) in using technology in teaching was higher than their frequency of use (2.97) or confidence in use (2.89). When comparing the five technology focus areas, classroom technologies had the highest overall perception of interest, frequency of use, and confidence (4.06) and telehealth technologies had the lowest (2.44). Nurse educators strongly agreed that technology can decision making (68%, n=83) and develop clinical skills (63%, n=77). Responses less robust when asked if respondents are prepared to use learning technologies in their teaching (36%, n=44 strongly agreed) or if faculty support for use of technology was adequate (11%, n=14 strongly agreed).
Conclusion:
The ELITE Program expanded the capacity of nursing schools to educate students for the 21st century healthcare practice by addressing two gaps in nursing education: 1) the technology gap between today’s nurse educators and their tech-savvy students and 2) the research and practice gap by providing opportunities for hands-on technology practice through continuing education workshops.