Purpose: In response to the mandate from Institute of Medicine (IOM) and American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) to increase the number of entry-level bachelorettes prepared nurses to practice by 2020 to 80% in the U.S., many schools of nursing are embracing the online teaching pedagogy. The online teaching and learning education offers a flexible schedule and convenience for both working and long distance nurses returning to school post Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN). This Presentation describes the experiences of two faculties during the process of moving the RN-BSN program from traditional classroom to full online classroom within the contest of Garrison's model of community inquiry. This model emphasizes qualitative teaching and learning resulting from the cohesive integration of cognitive, social and teaching presence that forms a community of inquiry. The experiences included designing and organizing course content, building learning community, selecting instructional activities that aligned with the course content and learning outcomes and faculty training on how to teach online. During the implementation phase, substantive feedback and encouragement were afforded along with guidance in the meaningful construction of knowledge and established consistent online presence to enhance seamless transition from face-to-face to 100% online teaching a success.
Methods:
A descriptive discussion of the process of planning, faculty education on teaching online, curriculum revision, students’ orientation, implementation, faculty challenges, and, lessons learned.
Results:
Analysis of students’ reflections at the end of the semester demonstrated that integration of cognitive, social and faculty teaching presence enhance student learning in an online environment.
Conclusion: Successful transition to an online pedagogy requires deliberate faculty training, availability of technical support, training for students and individualized faculty online presence. Discussion forum was one of the favorite tools as stated by majority of students, to share their perspectives on a specific issue and learning about diverse perspectives of their classmates on the same issue. Individualized feedback from the instructor as well as from their peers was helpful to improve their content knowledge and provided conceptual understanding.
