Using a new progressive tool to maximize clinical teaching and learning in the online environment, faculty and students are guided in the development of clinical judgment skills within simulated patient care environments. Attendees are invited to learn about the development, user experience, and lessons learned for application to their courses.
PURPOSE/BACKGROUND: Clinical judgment is essential to nursing practice, but student development of clinical reasoning processes necessary to make judgments in the context of client care does not occur by chance. Nursing faculty seek to facilitate student development of clinical judgment, but how often are we successful? Moving clinical experiences to an online learning environment while maintaining educational outcomes can be a challenge. Leaning into our success with a new progressive clinical teaching and learning tool, we adapted our work to meet the needs of clinical faculty and students as they moved from real-world clinical settings to the online classroom in a matter of weeks. This innovative clinical education project seeks to facilitate student development of clinical judgment skills through utilization of a clinical teaching and learning tool across the clinical curriculum. Strategies for implementing the clinical teaching and learning tool to facilitate learning in online clinical environments provide flexibility for continued use in blended learning environments. METHODS: An innovative clinical teaching technique was developed following an extensive review of the literature, creative brainstorming, and needs assessment among undergraduate baccalaureate nursing program stakeholders. Pilot testing led to the final version of the progressive clinical teaching and learning tool, recommendations for use, and development of an evaluation rubric. Evaluation of this clinical teaching and learning tool began in Fall 2019 and continues with additional sites beginning to use the guide as part of a longitudinal investigation. When clinical sites began to close their doors to nursing students in Spring 2020, researchers developed supplemental strategies for use of the guide to facilitate clinical judgment development in the online clinical environment. Faculty and students used a four-level clinical teaching and learning tool designed to foster clinical judgment through an intentional, progressive process and facilitate deeper discussions and reflective thinking within the context of simulated and actual client care situations. Students and faculty identified development of clinical judgment skills using Laster’s Clinical Judgment Rubric and the evaluation rubric. Qualitative and quantitative data was gathered via questionnaires and focused-group interviews from a cross-section of participants who used the tool in both clinical and online learning environments. RESULTS/CONCLUSION: Students reported that the clinical teaching and learning tool helped them “think about thinking” to discover patient problems and make connections, set priorities, and develop an interdisciplinary plan of care that honored the patient’s needs. Clinical faculty reported greater ease in teaching clinical judgment during the clinical experience and identified student progression of clinical judgement skills from one clinical experience to the subsequent semester across the clinical curriculum. Overall, participants identified the benefits of using the clinical teaching and learning tool in both face to face and online clinical experiences as provided a framework for engaging in deeper learning, collaborating with both peers and faculty, and developing clinical judgment skills. Ongoing data collection continues and updated findings will be reported. DISCUSSION/RECOMMENDATIONS: Use of an innovative clinical teaching and learning tool provides faculty and students with resources to enhance the clinical teaching and learning experience to focus on progressive development of clinical judgment skills to better prepare nursing students for real world clinical practice. As we move forward to an uncertain clinical environment, the strategies developed to implement the clinical teaching and learning tool for online and face to face clinical experiences provides a ready-resource to support development of clinical judgment across clinical learning environments. Level of Participation This session invites attendees to join us as we discuss new ideas in clinical teaching and learning and the development of a plan for this blended learning experience. Following an introduction to the clinical teaching and learning tool and ideas for use in blended learning environments, we will share lesson learned and participant feedback from transition to the online clinical environment and anticipated benefits when traditional clinical experiences resume. In addition, we will provide updates and ongoing research and development as we explore opportunities for facilitating faculty development and clinical judgment in clinical and online learning environments using our progressive clinical teaching and learning tool. Session Goals Individuals attending this blended learning session will be able to discover an innovative, progressive clinical teaching and learning tool for faculty and students. They will be able to identify tangible techniques to facilitate student development of clinical judgment skills in blended learning environments. And lastly, they will be able to discuss ongoing research and development related to the clinical teaching and learning tool for real-world, simulated, and online clinical environments.