UC Irvine

Background

The need for faculty to educate prospective nurses is urgent: without sufficient nursing faculty, schools regularly reject qualified applicants, despite an increasing need for nurses. At the same time, many graduate-prepared nurses lack preparation in teaching and pedagogical frameworks.

Problem

Literature on how PhD programs in nursing prepare graduates for teaching indicates that there is typically more emphasis on research than pedagogical learning.

Approach

With the shift to remote learning under the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of California Irvine created a Graduate Fellows program to provide support to faculty while offering graduate students education in pedagogy and remote learning.

Outcomes

Fellows were satisfied and reported increased understanding of challenges in teaching and increasing comfort with nurse faculty roles.

Conclusions

The collaborative efforts of fellows and faculty provided important resources at a critical time, and insights gained can inform similar projects in nursing faculty development.