The nursing department made another curriculum change within the undergraduate nursing program. We are now administering comprehensive case studies to each level of students every semester as an evaluation method. At the beginning of the semester, students will complete case studies on content that we have covered in previous semesters. At this point, the student will not receive a grade on the assignment, but they will receive feedback. The reason we decided to use it as an evaluation tool is because we found that students are not transferring knowledge from one course to the next. Through the case studies, we are hoping to stimulate our students to critical think, remember content from previous semesters, and associate clinical with the theory that we are teaching them in class (Rowles & Brigham, 2005).
When I teach, I love to use case studies. Case studies help the student have an in-depth analysis of real-life situation to help them understand class content. In addition, it applies didactic content and theory to real life (Rowles & Brigham, 2005). I have found that my students enjoy them also, and I always receive positive comments on my faculty evaluations regarding them. Rowels and Brigham (2005) said that developing case studies is a difficult and time-consuming skill for many and the option of published case studies should be considered. I have to agree that writing case studies is time consuming. When I write them, I study NCLEX books, and I make sure that I include the most common concepts that will be on the state boards in the scenario.
A senior tenure faculty member came up with the comprehensive case study idea, but a lot of the other faculty feels like it is "busy work". Personally, I feel we need to do whatever we can to assist students to be successful on the state boards, and I am willing to give it a try.
References
Rowles, C., & Brigham, C.(2005). Strategies to promote critical thinking and active
learning. In D. M. Billings & J.A. Halstead (Eds.), Teaching in nursing: A guide
for faculty (pp. 283-315). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Sanders.
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1 comment:
What a wonderful idea. I think your courses, where they are used for educational measurement and high quality work is rewarded, is the way to go. They're only busy-work if they don't use them: faculty may be talking about the busy-work the case studies require of them rather than the students.
I wonder what sort of effort students would exert if a case studies were worth up to one extra point on any of the classes that they were taking that semester. Would they take them seriously? If you had them turn them in sometime prior to finals, they they could bring a failing grade to passing, a C to a B, or a B to an A. I'll bet they would take them seriously then!
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