听
For Ingram School of Nursing professors Heather Hart and Norma Ponzoni, the best teaching fosters creativity, nurtures the imagination, sparks reflection and encourages active participation. This was the approach they took when tasked with designing a completely new course at the master鈥檚 level titled NUR2 603 Teaching and Learning in Nursing. Their inspired approach has paid off not only in terms of student satisfaction, but also through recognition by their peers as they received a Faculty Award for Teaching Innovation, presented by the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Previously, Advanced Nursing master鈥檚 students who had a particular interest in education were directed to take courses offered through the Faculty of Education. When a recent curriculum review led by Jodi Tuck, Program Director for Advanced Nursing, reiterated the gap in education competencies, the decision was made to create a course open to advanced nursing and nurse practitioner students that would address concepts in teaching and learning through a nursing lens. With degrees in both education and nursing, Profs. Hart and Ponzoni were well suited to designing and delivering this course, which was launched in the Winter of 2024. As Prof. Ponzoni explains, 鈥淲e love teaching and we鈥檝e been in the trenches so we understand how to contextualize educational concepts within students鈥� professional practice as nurses.鈥�
Prof. Hart, who describes herself as a risk-taker in the classroom, believes that teaching and learning can be experiential and fun while also rigorous and challenging. By reducing the often 鈥榞o-to鈥� didactic lecture-based instruction in favour of relevant activities and meaningful conversations, these two teachers model other approaches to teaching and learning that stretch ways of thinking about nursing education. 鈥淎lthough there can be some initial discomfort 鈥� which we address with the class - the students are open to our ideas, trust in the process and are active participants in their learning, in our collective learning.鈥�
These ideas include the use of movement and art to wrestle with complex ideas. For example, on the topic of education paradigms, students were divided into small groups, with each assigned a particular learning theory. Participants in each group contributed information about their assigned theory to a shared, live document that was projected on the screen and then created a skit exemplifying that particular learning paradigm, which they performed for the class. This embodied learning activitiy transformed the dense topic of learning theories into a memorable experience that supports retention of concepts.
No matter the topic, 鈥淏y modelling other ways of teaching, our goal is to give students the skillset to take on educational roles with enthusiasm and confidence, and to mentor students and new hires more effectively,鈥� says Prof. Ponzoni. Adds Prof. Hart, 鈥淚t鈥檚 gratifying to engage with students in ways that both challenge and inspire them to think differently about nursing education and to feel more equipped to assume the invaluable role of a teacher.鈥�