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My Practicum Thus Far

As I discussed in my first journal entry, for this practicum experience I am working with Dr.
Julie London teaching SUNY Delhis RN to BSN course NURS 402, Teaching and Learning. As
expected, this has been a very busy and interesting practicum. At this point, I have already
logged in over 30 hours for this experience, and do not have any doubt that I will more than
meet, (and likely far exceed) the 48 hour requirement I have for this practicum experience.
Before the course opened, I was busy in planning meetings with Dr. London, and also in
familiarizing myself with the course and platform from the faculty perspective in order to meet
my outcome of implementing strategies for communication with students in the online
environment to create a vibrant classroom. I have to admit that I thought this would be a bit
easier than it was. Although I have been a student in many, many SUNY Delhi courses, and had
great appreciation for the organization of the classrooms, I had not truly given enough thought in
regard to the amount of work that goes into developing a class before it even opens. Also before
the course opened, I created an About Us introduction in Adobe Spark, which was new
technology to me. Adobe Spark is relatively new and free technology which is unique in
allowing users to create web stories and video animation. A downside to this software is the
limited theme and palette choices, with little customizability (Bednarz, 2016), but I found more
than enough options to make a pleasing presentation for my introduction. That said, the learning
curve for this relatively user-friendly software was far steeper than I had initially anticipated. It
took a number of hours for me to create my video. However, I still very much liked my final
product, despite the limitations and challenges. This was only one of a number of eye-opening
experiences I have had thus far in this practicum experience.
I think that Dr. London knew of my naivet in regard to the staggering workload of an instructor
in an online classroom, as many of her suggestions regarding strategies around interacting with
students and managing work load, were in regard to setting boundaries, and time management.
Because I am somewhat invisible in some of the work I have done with the students (grading,
strategizing about how to deal with student issues), I have not really had issues with time
management in regard to my interactions with students. However, in order to meet my outcome
of appraising assessment methods, and conducting assessment of student work thus far, I have
responded to students in the DQs, graded DQs and scholarly papers (using GradeMark
software), and interacted in a forum with a student as she developed behavioral objectives for a
teaching project assignment. For my evidence, I submitted samples of this work. Dr. London also
forwarded me a couple of student emails regarding late work, to which I proposed responses. Dr.
London and I agreed upon an approach in addressing the student issues. I found it reassuring that
my instincts in this area seemed reasonable to Dr. London. Quite honestly, these tasks were
extremely challenging, and all took far longer than I had anticipated. I have also found it rather
challenging to give good critique to students, while remaining positive and supportive. Although
Dr. London has very much liked my work, finding this balance was extremely time-consuming,
with a lot of teeth-gnashing on my part. I think that part of my challenge here is that I have rather
limited experience with unmotivated, low-performing students, and I will discuss this further in
my reflection. Although I have always considered myself to be a conscientious student, the
responsibilities of working in the classroom from the faculty side has even more significant
weight in terms of my responsibility to perform at the highest possible level.
Another of my outcomes was to appraise opportunities and resources for advanced nursing
practice development in the role of faculty. For my evidence, I submitted a narrative of my
discussion with Dr. London regarding her efforts. We discussed Dr. Londons (rather arduous)
journey toward earning her PhD (her dissertation topic was asynchronous feedback), her
membership in the Eastern Nursing Research Society, and an upcoming research project on
minimal versus substantive feedback for students in which she will participate. I will discuss
further other ideas I have had in regard to practice development in my reflection section.
Goals and Activities
Although my goals have remained the same since the beginning of this practicum, the scope of
my activities has changed. In looking at the learning curves, and the time involved in all of the
activities, Dr. London and I made the decision to lighten some of my workload. The first
scholarly paper I graded in GradeMark, took over three hours to evaluate. Much of this time was
due to my need to learn the GradeMark software. However, some of this was also due to the
frustratingly poor quality of the paper, which required intensive feedback. Although Dr. London
very much liked my feedback, she told me that, at some point it is okay to say to the student that
they have many of the same errors throughout the paper, and to give them suggestions for
resources for the future (writing tutor, greater effort, etc.). In addition, the work each week in the
classroom familiarizing myself with the readings and tasks the students were charged with, in
addition to the research required for substantive responses, with valuable Socratic questioning
took many, many hours as well. Ultimately, I think that by lightening my workload somewhat
with students will allow me to meet the remainder of my outcomes, while still gaining valuable
experience interacting with students in this familiar, but tremendously different, teaching and
learning environment. Thus far, I have been a bit overwhelmed by this practicum experience. I
think that most of this is simply due to the fact that I really had no idea what teaching in the
online platform actually entailed. That said, I have been having a great experience under the
tutelage of Dr. London, and am grateful for this fantastic learning opportunity.
Work Still to be Done
For my outcome of discovering more about the principles of instructional design, curriculum
development, course revision, and general maintenance of the online classroom, I continue to
learn more about the Moodle platform. I continue to avail myself of Moodle tutorials, and have
even found a free-trail of a great Moodle resource, as well as CCTL resources on Delhis website
to help me in these efforts. I would encourage everyone to look at the CCTL resources, as there
are not only useful tutorials in learning Moodle functionalities, there are a number of useful
articles for related online classroom topics such as, the frequency of student cheating in the
online versus face-to-face environment, and the uses and advantages of audio and video feedback
(SUNY Delhi, 2017). In addition, Dr. London and I will continue to work together in discussion
around instructional design, curriculum development, course revisions, and the general
maintenance efforts that go into the management of the online classroom. I also still have more
work to do in meeting my outcome of evaluating program evaluation and assessment principles,
procedures and tools, and look forward to working with Dr. London on this in our last few weeks
together.
Service
Fact 2 Symposium.
To meet my outcome of evaluating service, governance, collaboration, and participation, I
engaged in a variety of activities. First, I attended the SUNY Faculty Advisory Council on
Teaching and Technology (FACT2) Symposium in Albany, New York with Drs. Digger and
Deane. SUNY FACT2 was created in 1986 to give SUNY faculty and staff access to professional
development opportunities in the use of technology for both classroom pedagogy and research.
This continues to be an exponentially growing area in education. Professional development of
faculty in the realm of digital technologies, and their use in the classroom, are an important focus
in education. Helping educators how to not only use technologies for common tasks, but helping
them to use these technologies to approach instruction in innovative ways, is the focus of efforts
such as those undertaken by SUNYs FACT2 (Twining, Raffaghelli, Albion, & Knezek, 2013). At
the FACT2 symposium I was on a panel with Drs. Digger and Deane where we discussed the use
of Shadow Health for use as a clinical experience. For my practicum evidence, I provided a
narrative of my talking points, a link to photos from the conference, and also a PDF of the
program for which I had submitted a short bio. Not only was it exciting to be a speaker at a
conference for the very first time, I was struck with the importance of sharing my knowledge
with other educators, and fully intend to seek out these experiences in the future.
SUNY Delhi faculty meeting.
I also attended a SUNY Delhi faculty meeting as part of my service experience. I have to admit
that as I saw more and more people signing on (I think there were 31 at the high point), I truly
couldnt imagine how any substantive work would get done. Of course, considering the source, I
should have known better. The meeting was incredibly well-run with Dr. Lewis at the helm
keeping the agenda moving right along. One thing I did notice, despite the full agenda and
obvious time-constraints, was that discussions did not seem to be cut short, and that there was
both room and provision for additional discussion on topics of interest and/or concern. A number
of items were discussed: the upcoming Excelsior scholarships, a new assessment committee
request that program SLOs be aligned/linked to ILOs assessment, a new TA position for the BSN
program, and committee structure and changes in leadership were announced. In addition, a new
APA resource (APA Style Central) was introduced by Amanda Calabrese, and the lack of
transferability of Shadow Health assessment for SUNY ITs nurse practitioner program, the
impact on students, and a possible solution, were also discussed. As always, I was struck by the
student-centered discussions, as many of these topics viewed with an eye to their real or potential
impact upon students. The collegial atmosphere of this meeting cannot be understated. As we
have discussed upon a number of occasions throughout our program, faculty-to-faculty incivility
is a serious and all-too-common issue. Such behaviors as setting a co-worker up to fail, making
rude comments or putting down colleagues, being resistant to change, refusal to communicate in
regard to work-related concerns, and even personal attacks and threats are all common behaviors
seen in faculty-to-faculty interaction (Clark, Olender, Kenski, & Cardoni, 2013). However, such
behaviors were absent from this meeting. In fact, I witnessed what seemed to be an engaged,
supportive, enthusiastic, and innovative group of educators at work. This meeting was very
efficiently run, and even finished one minute early. Dr. Lewis, and the ZOOM-savvy faculty
made having 30-plus people in Zoom seemed very manageable. It was also a pleasure to have the
opportunity to see everyone at work.
Dr. Londons service efforts.
I also had discussion with Dr. London in regard to her service responsibilities, and provided a
narrative of this discussion as my evidence. Dr. London engages in a number of service efforts as
Delhi faculty. She is a member of the SUNY Delhi Technology committee, the SUNY Senate,
and Graduate Research Subcommittee, and is also a certified Faith Community Nurse. Until I
met Dr. London, I had no idea that there was such a thing as a certified Faith Community Nurse,
and I was very interested to hear about her work in this role. Faith community nursing plays an
important role in public health. In fact, there is research which indicates that the presence of faith
community nurses has been shown to improve patients feelings of efficacy and clinical
outcomes, especially in elderly populations who suffer from chronic conditions (Cooper, &
McCarter, 2014). In discussion of her various service activities, Dr. London shared the constant
challenge of finding enough time to do all that she would like in this area. I was glad to hear this,
as I find many of these same challenges in my life in regard to time for service as well.
Reflection
I have nearly seven years of experience working in the educational environment with students
which includes, instructional support, clinical, lab, and classroom instruction. I also have
approximately five years of experience as a student in SUNY Delhis online programs. However,
this practicum experience has still managed to come as somewhat of a surprise to me. As I
mentioned, the technological learning curve, the responsibilities of running the classroom, as
well as the time-intensive classroom and grading activities, have come as a great surprise, and
presented a number of challenges for me. I have been able to mitigate this to some degree as I
become more familiar with grading requirements and software, and I have also learned to start
planning, and even writing, feedback well in advance of the end of the week. When grading my
second weeks DQs, I graded students initial posts as I read them the first time, and keeping
abreast of their attendance and peer responses as we went along, thus saving time at the end. I
would most certainly do this were I to ever work in the role of educator in the online classroom. I
would also most certainly work smarter, not harder, and try to be sure that the response posts I
wrote have components that I could use again in future classes. In fact, I was very happy to be
able to use small portions of my previous research and postings in response to student posts. As I
mentioned before, I am so glad we were encouraged to save all of our Delhi work to flash drives.
This has come in handy on so many occasions, and this practicum experience is a perfect
example.
Interestingly (and surprisingly), I have to say that the greatest challenge I have faced thus far is
dealing with students who seem to lack motivation, and whose work is sub-standard as a result of
either this or knowledge deficits. I think that determining the root cause of this less-than-stellar
performances will inform how I handle these situations. I do think that my somewhat limited role
and interactions with the students has both protected, and perhaps limited, me in some ways here.
I have found Dr. London a great resource here. In response to my frustration with some of the
student work, and lack of implementation of suggestions for remediation, Dr. London basically
reminded me of that old adage, you can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink. In
keeping with the constructivist philosophy in which students are ultimately responsible for their
own learning (Davey, 2015), there does come a point when students have to be given the right to
fail. Of course, I am somewhat inclined to hand-hold the students, but have gotten much better at
simply directing them to resources that will help them, and to support them in these efforts.
I have had this lack of motivation/under-performance issue to deal with in only the most limited
way, as my experience with students and peers thus far has been limited to very highly motivated
populations. I also think I have a rather strong (and likely unproductive) bias in regard to under-
performing students. In the nursing program where I teach, competition for seats is such that
only about one in three applicants are successful in getting a seat in the nursing program, and
students only have two chances to succeed in the nursing program. This makes for an
extraordinarily highly-motivated student population, so I suspect I have been spoiled. In
addition, the cohorts I have been associated with in both my BSN and MSN programs at Delhi
have almost exclusively had high-performing students. In addition, it was only on the rare
occasion that I had to interact with mediocre students, as I generally avoided responding to their
posts whenever I had the option. In any case, I have found myself having a good bit of difficulty
dealing, not only with low-motivation students, but in dealing with my feelings toward them. I
cant help thinking what kind of nurses these individuals can possibly be, if they are comfortable
doing such mediocre work in the classroom. However I do try to keep in mind (with my
colleagues and Dr. Londons reminders) that there are likely many forces at work in these
students lives, and that they are not necessarily morally bankrupt, as I am wont to assume
Obviously, this is an area where there is an opportunity for growth for me, and I continue to do
so in my work in the online classroom.
Another area in which I have experienced growth is in my desire to do meaningful service and to
continue to development my practice as a nursing educator. Since I began working at Columbia
Greene Community College (CGCC), I have either been in the first year of a new role
(simulation lab instructional support, clinical, lab, and classroom instructor), or been a
baccalaureate or graduate student. Although I have participated in the responsibilities of the
faculty in our division and institution, I have not been able to participate in as meaningful a way
as I would like. In addition, when preparing my CV, It was not lost on me how thin my
conference attendance section was, not to mention my research efforts. These are all areas I am
thoroughly excited to engage in more fully. In addition, I plan to do a great deal work on my
classroom content and delivery. Another thing I most certainly will continue to do with even
more care as I consider a flipped classroom and greater use of technology, it the careful
integration of these technologies, with plenty of time built in for the learning curves and
inevitable failures and do-overs.
In addition to my discussions with Dr. London in regard to advanced nursing practice
development, my experiences have highlighted for me the plethora of opportunities available. As
a result, I plan to seek out opportunities for research, educational opportunities such as
conferences (both as a presenter and attendee), and I will also develop the skills I need to begin
writing grants to fund my efforts in these areas. Professional development of nurses has an
impact upon job satisfaction and retention (Chang et al., 2015). In the community college where
I work, professional development resources are minimal, and release time for these efforts is
virtually non-existent. However, it is my hope that I will be able to have an impact upon this,
through grant writing and advocacy, in the interest of both retaining and recruiting nursing
educators who will ultimately feel supported and fulfilled in their roles. Over the years, I have
been constantly amazed by the number of opportunities nurses have created for themselves, not
only in the realm of advancing their personal practice, but the profession as a whole. I look
greatly forward to becoming a part of this as I continue to develop my own practice.
Even though I have found this practicum experience to be rather challenging, I have come away
with so much from this experience that I will take with me into my future practice, so it has all
been worth the effort and angst. I am also extremely grateful to Dr. London for taking on the
responsibility of guiding me through this experience, and will most definitely take many valuable
lessons away from her management and support of me. Eventually, I hope to be able to serve in
the future in the role of preceptor to future nurse educators, and will most definitely bring
experiences I have with Dr. London during this practicum along with me for use in these future
endeavors.
Marjorie Reilly
References
Bednarz, J. (2016). Design at a glance: The pros and cons of Canva and Adobe Spark.
Retrieved from http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/design-glance-
pros-cons-canva-adobe-spark-01581527#drDgrGp8zHsQfVie.97
Chang, H., Shyu, Y. L., Wong, M., Friesner, D., Chu, T., & Teng, C. (2015). Which aspects of
professional commitment can effectively retain nurses in the nursing profession?.
Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(5), 468-476. doi:10.1111/jnu.12152
Clark, C., Olender, L., Kenski, D., & Cardoni, C. (2013). Exploring and addressing faculty-
to-faculty incivility: A national perspective and literature review. Journal of Nursing
Education, 52(4), 211-218. doi:10.3928/01484834-20130319-01
Cooper, J., & McCarter, K. (2014). The development of a community and home-based chronic
care management program for older adults. Public Health Nursing, 31(1), 36-43.
doi:10.1111/phn.12049
Davey, K. (2015). Constructivism. Retrieved from https://www.learning-theories.com/
constructivism.html
Suny Delhi. (2017). The Callas Center for Teaching and Learning: Moodle 3.0. Retrieved from
https://cctl.delhi.edu/
Twining, P., Raffaghelli, J., Albion, P., & Knezek, D. (2013). Moving education into the digital
age: The contribution of teachers' professional development. Journal of Computer
Assisted Learning, 29(5), 426-437. doi:10.1111/jcal.12031

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