Looking at nursing education through the lens of current clinical practice, Keith began teaching students clinical reasoning by selecting relevant data to determine patient care priorities.
As a new educator, he discovered the book, Educating Nurses: A Call for Radical Transformation, the Carnegie Foundation’s research project led by Dr. Patricia Benner. The research-proven teaching strategies Dr. Benner outlined included specific ways educators could better prepare nursing students for practice:
- Contextualize textbook content to practice so students clearly understand how it applies to patient care.
- Integrate clinical concepts and practice realities in the classroom.
- Emphasize clinical reasoning so students can practice essential clinical decision-making skills.
Keith realized he was in good company and wasn’t so alone after all.
CHALLENGING THE STATUS QUO
Excited to apply these methods, Keith began exploring case-based teaching resources available from publishers but found that they were low quality and not based on educational principles. So he developed a new way to teach his students…using a clinical reasoning case study. He began creating his own evidence-based case format, using the practice-based frameworks of Tanner’s Clinical Judgement Model (CJM) and the nursing process.
Although some students resisted this active learning strategy because they couldn’t see the benefit of this change, most felt this new way of learning made them better prepared for clinical because they could practice and then apply clinical reasoning to their patients.
In the spring of 2012, as an unknown educator, Keith was asked to present his teaching strategies and clinical reasoning case studies at a national nurse educator conference. He created a website, KeithRN.com, to share his resources and …
KeithRN was born.
