In a seminal 2008 AAC&U report, educational researchers identified high impact academic practices (HIPs) in undergraduate programs and the resulting strong positive effects on students, faculty, programs and organizations,as a result of participating in identified evidence-based curricular, co-curricular and pedagogical practices. Since that landmark report, further educational research corroborates that these "high-impact" academic practices result in deeper student learning and engagement, reflection, and enhanced collaboration with members of a broader learning and practice community. The purpose of integrating high impact practices into nursing education is to demonstrate student experiences with HIPs that result in enhancement of the knowledge, skills, and abilities to solve real world problems and other higher order thinking skills, both of which are critically needed in our rapidly changing and diverse healthcare environments. This curricular integration presents an innovative opportunity to develop, implement and access the use of evidence-based, high impact practices in nursing education.
Methods:
Building upon this is the Institute of Medicine's landmark report The Future of Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health (2010) which underscores the urgent need for research focused on nursing education and the importance of evidence-based teaching, this interactive presentation provides methods for clinical and academic faculty and academic leaders to develop, integrate and assess the use of HIPs into nursing courses and curricula at all levels, as well as into transition into practice or hospital-based nurse residency programs. Methods of implementation include the student surveys at the end of every course, assessing over time satisfaction or and learning from, identification of writing intensive courses, the development of standardized rubrics and assignment guidance tools and reflective opportunities in academic or clinical courses.
Results:
Results of the use of evidence-based high impact practices in nursing education, such as ePortfolios, capstone courses, service learning, enhanced advising systems, assignments that require collaboration between the student and broader communities, have suggested increased student engagement, a self-reported deeper "sense of self" which has been correlated with improved role socialization, students entering practice modeling authentic learning experiences, as well as improved student, faculty and leadership satisfaction.
Conclusion:
Integrating and assessing the effectiveness of these innovative evidence-based high impact practices into nursing education curricula is reported to strengthen the actual and perceived skill building of new nursing graduates in the areas of role socialization, reflection of role preparation, higher order thinking, and problem solving.