Closing the Gap: Nurse Educators Reimagined

In this episode of Nursing EDge Unscripted, Dr. Raquel Bertiz hosts a candid conversation with Dr. Amber Young-Brice and Dr. Kyla Farrar Stern about the evolving role and preparation of nurse educators. Drawing from their own academic journeys, Amber and Kyla share challenges they faced transitioning from clinical practice to teaching, highlighting the importance of mentorship and structured pedagogical support. They reflect on the gaps in educator preparation and offer insights on how institutions can better equip future nurse faculty. The discussion emphasizes the need to reimagine what it means to be a nurse educator in today’s academic and clinical environments. Through storytelling, humor, and honest dialogue, this episode sheds light on the personal and professional growth that shapes effective nursing educators.

Farrar Stern, K., & Young Brice, A. (2024). Change in expectations: A policy recommendation for future and current nurse educators. Journal of Professional Nursing, 54, 260–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2024.08.003

Young-Brice, A., Farrar-Stern, K. & Malin, S. (2022). Comprehensive Onboarding and Orientation Increases Retention Among Newly Hired Faculty. Nurse Educator, 47(6), 347-351. Doi: 10.1097/NNE.0000000000001242

Dedicated to excellence in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the leading organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education. Find past episodes of the NLN Nursing EDge podcast online. Get instant updates by following the NLN on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube. For more information, visit NLN.org.

Transcript

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[Music][Music] Welcome to this episode of the NLN podcast, Nursing Edge Unscripted. I am Raquel Bertiz.  I am the host of this episode and I am from the National League for Nursing. In this episode,  we'll have an interesting conversation around pedagogical preparation of nurse educator. And our  guest for today, I'll start with Dr. Amber Young Brice. She is an associate professor and associate  dean for academic affairs at Marquette University College of Nursing and Dr. Kyla Ferrar Stern is a  clinical assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. And our two nurse educators  with us today wrote a very interesting article calling for a change in expectations  a policy recommendation for future and current educators in the Journal of Professional Nursing.  So welcome Amber and Kyla. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having us. All  right. So, let me ask you, what inspired or informed your interest in nurse educator  preparation? Yeah. So, I'll take this first. So for me as a newer nurse compared to Amber  at least, just kind of reflecting on my own transition experience going from a nursing student  to a bedside nurse and then again shortly after transitioning to academic nursing or teaching. It was kind of a a whirlwind experience and there were some bumps in the road I would say and that  was kind of what informed my interest is how do we make that better for future students? What  can I do to help that transition? Mhm. I would have to agree with Kyla that thinking about  going through school, you know, even starting back in elementary school, things were not easy  for me and I constantly through all phases of my education trying to figure out what do teachers  want from me? And spending all of that brain power trying to just figure that part out and  then really missing out on a lot of key learning moments. And so like Kyla, I developed this  desire to help students have a better experience than I had and really try to cut back on,   all of that guessing, that students tend to waste their brain space on. And so that's  really how Kyla and I met is we both had this,  similar interest in nursing education, which then,  developed into doing research together. And so, we've done a few projects together,  you know, with students or with faculty, but all really around nursing education and how do we  best support student success from both sides. Wow. Yeah, that's that's very interesting. And it's   also kind of like a very uh similar theme across the board as I talk to a lot of educators  and we look back at how we were all educated as nursing students and I would say at the back of  our minds like I wish I could have been educated differently or what would have been my experience  if I had a different experience and that goes back to our nurse educators, right? So,  now that we're all nurse educators as well, it's it's really high time for us to examine what's  our pedagogical preparation or how are we being prepared to educate and and be at that place now  where we can really influence the preparation of our future nurses. So with that said,  what have you identified as primary factors contributing to the gap in the pedagogical  preparation among nurse educators? And I'm I'm almost already claiming there is a gap,  right? So maybe we should start with that, right? Do you think there's a gap in pedagogical  preparation? If if yes, what are the factors that contribute to this?  So, I think it kind of stems from the expectations we set for our educators and what we want them  walking in the door with. So, for most states, it's mostly a master's degree, but is it a  master's degree that's advanced practice that puts you in a a clinically specialized area, or is it  specifically focused on how to teach in like a nursing education perspective? And so, currently,  there's a lot of variation in what that baseline is, what what are those expectations? So to help  address that gap, I would say kind of going back to our state boards of nursing and looking at  what do they want out of their nurses and do they even require continuing education. So I  think this is the gap exists based on multiple reasons or you know um things that impact it,  but I think that's a good like starting point is what are those expectations? Right. Right. And  I'll highlight there's no standard requirement to have pedagogical preparation to teach. It's  as simple as that. That's the gap is states to state, school to school. There is no standard  requirement to have any sort of preparation to teach. And I would couple that gap also with  financial considerations that academics we just cannot compete with the salaries of  bedside nurses. And so I think that contributes to this gap in pedagogical preparation because  it's it's it's an add-on almost and I hate to say that but it's not a requirement for a lot  of people that go into teaching. So yeah and I want to highlight something that you wrote in  your article that article that you co-wrote and  this line about how interesting it  is that AACN for example do not view nurse educator or nursing educate education as an  advanced practice or or even a specialty. And that goes back to what you're saying in terms of well,  we can't compete with the financial aspect of that then because our counterparts elsewhere would be  paid higher because they are at an advanced degree or advanced practice level. So what are  your thoughts on that? So what are your thoughts and I'm throwing this to both of you. What are  your thoughts about should we consider nurse educator as an advanced practice? I would say  yes. Because it's it's one thing to be a nurse and practice in a variety of areas,  right? And even when you start those jobs, you get additional education and orientation to that  specific area. Why not in teaching as well? We are doing something different. It's it's not  the same as going and working with patients at the bedside. It really is its own thing to understand  what you're trying to teach and then have it come across in a way that your students are going to  understand it. And that doesn't come natural for everybody. And having some of that additional  education behind it is important and impactful. At least that's kind of what we saw from my  dissertation study is that educators have such an impact based on how they do things. But that  doesn't come without preparation, right? And it's interesting that AACN has that perspective because  then CCNE who does the accrediting is still looking at the masters in nursing education and  looking at are those programs including the 3Ps  the clinical hours so on and so forth. And so   it's just an interesting dynamic between AACN and then CCNE and how they're approaching  this area of nursing education. And I would agree with Kyla. I think we're both clearly  biased towards towards this being something that is special. You have to understand  learning science. You have to understand, I mean, the theories. There's theoretical  underpinnings of how learning works. And so you are going through a lot of specialized courses to  really fully understand nursing education from that broader perspective. And so I would have  to agree too that this is a specialization. You are setting yourself apart from others by taking  you know teaching and learning credits towards that masters in nursing education or even a DNP or  a PhD. And that brings us back to the conversation of clinical expertise will not equate to expertise  in education or educational pedagogy. Mhm. And and therefore I think one way to to showcase that  very point would be what have what are your observations or your experiences in terms of  transition from a clinical expertise to teaching? So what are the experiences of nurse educators on  that transition? I think in terms of preparedness just like we see in practice if you like  with our nurse externs for example they have a little bit more pre practice under their belt  they're in the environment they're going to feel a little bit more confident to go do that nursing  role when the time comes. I think if somebody has maybe a degree where they have maybe like  like student teaching or they're in the classroom or they're in the clinical before  they actually have to be there on their own. It would be fair to say that just having that would  improve hopefully that transition even if just a little bit. Right. I mean there's a whole role  transition theory. We didn't talk about this in this specific article, but we did talk about  it in another article. If I can just put a little plug about the comprehensive onboarding program  that I facilitate. So, Kyla helped me with data analysis on that. And the transition from  clinical practice into being an educator is quite significant and one that I don't think  we give enough attention to that. I had one faculty participant and she was quoted as saying,  you know, the feedback I got at the bedside is not the feedback that I get as an educator. My  patients are like, "Thank you." You know, whatever they say, students are very different and faculty  colleague to faculty colleague, peer-to-peer is very, very different. And so that transition in  and of itself is significant. And then if we add on that layer of if you have education  preparation or not or pedical preparation or not, that just compounds what a person can be  experiencing in that transition into education. If at least you have some coursework under your belt,  you're understanding the wise of what you're seeing and experiencing, even if it's still  all super new and you're a novice again. Knowing like, oh, this is probably why this is happening  with my students can help lessen how some of the negatives that people might experience  bedside to education. Right. Exactly. What you have said in that other article also  because think about this what we have learned in nursing education is to practice as a nurse and  then therefore if you are going to practice as an educator what knowledge base do you need? Well,  obviously education, but then in many, many cases in in the nursing uh education world,  our clinical experts are transported into the world of nursing education and then kind of like  we expect them to be magically expert educators as well. But you're very right there. The  role transition process is something that we really have to consider in in this world of  academic preparation and it's just very interesting to look at it that way and then  looking at what are the consequences of inadequately prepared educators? I think that's  something that we have to think of as a nursing education community and the ethics of it. Right?  So let me transition then into questions about like hm let's talk a little bit about like what  are the effects of nurse educators nonpreparedness or inadequate preparation for nursing education.  Yeah. So I think for this at least from like what I saw in my research study is that students  they are very quick to say like oh somebody's doing this one way or my learning doesn't resonate  with how this person's educating and they're very quick to say all the negative things um that they  don't like about their experience but they're not always talking about the good things that happen.  The other thing I was thinking is that if educators don't have that background or  that additional preparation, they might not be using maybe the most evidence-based strategies.  And then kind of going back to what we said is there if they don't have it, they rely on  how they were educated. And so students then are like, well, I'm not getting what I need or  um maybe there's a mismatch in how somebody's educating versus how the students are learning.  And so even though an educator might have good intentions, it might not always translate to  good learning for the students. So how they implement it is also important. So that's  kind of my thoughts on that one. Well, kind of like if you're saying it that way,  think about we're we're always ruminating on this concept of the education practice gap,  right? So we're always looking at why are students inadequately prepared. So if we are to graduate  nurses who are going to be able to practice and navigate what we want them to be able to  do competencies in other words how are we educating them? But then if we don't have that  evidence-based set of knowledge to teach it. It could be like yes, yeah, it's a no-brainer. We are  educating our our future nurses with with what, but where did we learn all of this? Does it goes  back to education on how to educate, which is of course back to your point both of you is that well  there's no standard preparation. If there are also consequences on the institutions themselves  or programs if you will or even our own nurse educator community. What could be the consequences  of non-standard preparation or inadequate preparation of of our faculty? What's the effect  what would be an effect of that in our programs or in our I guess faculty uh groups? I'll jump in here. I think one thing we we want to make sure we're clear on is that having educator  preparation, obtaining the CNE, you know, the certified nurse educator doesn't equal  being a good teacher either. I think it does help people, again, and I said this a little earlier,  understand the wise behind what's going on, right? And I think that I always say this,  student behavior is a form of communication. And if you have some if you understand learning theory  like behaviorism for example which will correspond to competency based a lot because we're looking  at what are students doing and showing us you can kind of navigate some of those curricular  decisions in a different way if you have that underpinning. So I will die on the hill that we  should all know about learning theory and learning science um at a minimum. But I think  if we have any sort of standardized preparation across the board, it helps us all have a shared  mental model. And I think that is maybe some of the missing pieces. We have expert clinicians  who are really amazing faculty. They are when you couple them up with somebody that has some  pedagogical preparation that understands some of that learning science, how learning works.  That's where the magic happens I think and just think of the possibilities if all of us had  some sort of underlying preparation what could happen to curricula across the board if that  did become something that was standardized. And I think with you know thinking about  educator competencies are consequences of you know having an adequate knowledge base and being  prepared to teach. I always think of what's our ethical obligation to students. And you know,  it takes a team. It takes that experience. It takes mentoring and peer support to  really bring all those pieces together coupled with a CNE. So I want to just make sure  like we're not saying CNE equals good. It just you understand why like the I think the why is behind  everything is really essential for us to help with all the things we're talking about. You  just unpack a lot of concepts there. Amber, you you talk about what's the value of CNE. Yes.  It does not equate to competencies either if you will. And relating it to my own personal  experiences and hearing other faculty preparing for CNE and their comments like, oh, finally I know  what this is. And. Right. Right. And these are faculty members who have been teaching maybe  like a few years already and now they're just saying, "Oh, now this is why we do this." Right.  It's it's backwards. It's the why or having a name. Like I hear the oh, that's what that's  called. Right. Right. And and then think of and I like the word you use and I'll borrow that.  Think of the magic that could happen if you have this strong clinical expertise coupled with like  strong pedagogical background and therefore what would that standard preparation would be. And  you said well of course theory of learning is number one right and we can probably name  a few more into that mix of the standard and therefore or standards and now I think  it's also a conversation of what could be possible ways to make this happen. I know it's  like we can make this happen but but how what are your thoughts on that? Amber, do you want to go  first so I can ruminate on this? So how do we make this happen? I have lots of ideas. You know,  I think something that you may ask us coming up, Raquel, but I'm going to say it now  is having standard expectations, standardized expectations for educators would really help us.  Again have that shared mental model. However, credentialing in nursing education is not looked  at the same way as it is as credentialing as like a ped specialist or older adult specialists. And  so that is one one thing to note here with that having the standard expectations. We don't  want it to become a barrier to people coming into faculty roles because if it's if it's not standard  as part of what everybody has to do and it's part of what's infused into the culture of a college  of nursing or school of nursing, I could see us having some issues. You know, for example, in  higher ed, there are some places that'll pay for people to get their CNE and there's others that  don't and they don't pay for any certifications for their faculty because it's not a requirement  to teach, right? So, that's one thing to note. I think what we have to think about with kind of  making this kind of standardized pro standardized process is how are faculty being onboarded and  how are we infusing again just I'm going to name it learning theory into an onboarding program.  So at least they're getting that to then broaden out into more development as they go.  question there add is that for new educators it's a great learning tool right they're preparing  for this new role it's something that maybe they want to invest in because they know they're  going to use it the thing I question is well what about our like mid-career faculty who've been here  doing this for a while or the ones who are close to retirement like how do you really standardize  those expectations for those folks that are realistic and doesn't I don't like offend their  experience or their wisdom. So it's I think it's a bigger broader question than just what  can we do now? We really have to think about all the pieces to the puzzle um to give that  answer. Yeah. Yeah. And and if we're thinking of nurse educators as having standardized expected competencies as well uh which brings us of course to the essence of the CNE certification  where it's organized around the expectations or competencies of the faculty but we can also  think about but leveling of competencies right of course the new or novice educator would would be  at this level. Somebody who'd been teaching for 25 years or more should be considered an expert. So  it's it's still that novice to expert expectations there within the frame of expected competencies  and therefore think about other professions even in nursing right it your  competencies are expected to progress from being a novice to expert. What about nurse educators then?  Do we have that expectations for ourselves and and what would be the measure like CNE is that really  a measure of competency? And then in terms of faculty development, continuing development,  what do we have? And I like what you said in terms of onboarding, what's that onboarding like?  And then again standardization of onboarding for faculty that's probably another podcast by itself.  So but yeah very well but let me point one more point out one more point from the article  that you said is about what are the roles of of states? Could they be significant if lack of a  better word? What's their significance in helping this standardization or do we really want that to  go there right would be a good question as well. Yeah, I think in terms of states they have the  potential to be helpful. Like if we just look at like continuing education in general  from state to state if it's a requirement for nurses I would hope that those who are  doing those education credits are picking things that are meaningful to them and useful in their  development and so if somebody knows they're going to be transitioning into education maybe that's  the time and the place to say okay this is where I'm going to do that additional preparation.  However, not everyone's going to think that way. Or it's more seen as a barrier. It's  another thing I have to do. And so there's kind of pros and cons to saying, "Hey, let's do it this  way." But that's just like a starting point. At least that's kind of the way I see it,  right? And we're always cognizant of the shortage as well, right? So nurse workforce shortage,  nursing faculty shortage, and where do we stay in that in that to balance our expectations,  wish future as nurse educators and then of course the needs that were facing as well.  So yeah, so the these are all very good points and and highlights. And therefore as we kind of  like try to close our conversation, I want to ask both of you. So what are some of the nuggets  or I would say lessons that you can share with us and the nursing education community about all of  these lessons that you have learned your research on nursing education professional development  or preparation of nurse educators. For me I would say that that nugget is that if anyone's  considering transitioning into nursing education that your impact is potentially exponential. And  so students are going to see that way, your peers are going to see it that way. And so the  more prepared you can be, and that's going to look different for everybody, but what you can  do to prepare yourself for that transition, but then also that impact is really important and it  doesn't go unnoticed. Yeah. And I'm hoping that our administrators, our leaders are also  listening as we speak. Right. Right. And who is um here today? Amber, I was going to say I have  a whole different lens on this and how we have to think about it. And yes, you know, just a couple  of things I want to end with. One, we need more data to have some data informed decision making.  And I know there's some research going on. I saw a LinkedIn recruitment post of do you have your CE?  We'd like to talk to you. And I think if we can get some more data, correlational data between,  you know, pedagogical preparation, whatever that looks like, and student outcomes, that's  one thing to help us work with policy within our our institutions, but also policy at those state  boards of nursing of of should there be something standardized because here's what the data is  showing and we might not see anything. You know, that's the cool thing about research. You don't  know until you start to gather this data to make your decisions. And I would say then with  that is falling back on the novice to expert that you brought up, Raquel, is being intentional about  how we onboard people into their faculty roles is something I'm very aware of because when you are  a novice in education, okay, expert in practice, but I'm sorry, now you are novice again and it's  really uncomfortable. What do we need to do first to help building people in their experience? What  do we do at that midpoint? So, I have a a National Science Foundation grant and I'm  finding that midpoint faculty are are the prime group because they have enough experience to know  what they're they're experiencing and seeing, but they know they have still a lot of room to grow,  right? And so, how do we think about that with our nurse educators coming in and that novice to  expert is the timing of the faculty development and what we're doing at what point? And then as  admin administrator, I was thinking as we've been talking today, how are administrators weaving in  competencies into their peer evaluations and their annual evaluations and what do those look  like across all of our nursing programs? I would like to think there's some similarities,  but I don't know. I haven't looked into this, but that's another area of how are we leaving this  in if we think it's important into our evaluation processes to help people feel supported  and you know want to grow. Like Kyla has said a few times, this is a lot of times a personal  endeavor that they want to do for themselves. And so how do we support and foster that through  some of our evaluation processes, right? Like  personal motivations, professional uh motivations  definitely and so much more. And I know we can go on talking about this because the this  is a topic that I think that is close to our hearts as educators because we're essentially  talking about ourselves here and um therefore it's hard to summarize what we've talked  about because we've talked about so many areas of educational preparation of the educator in  nursing. But to end this conversation, I would like to thank both of you for being here and  and sharing your thoughts and expertise and really also stimulating more thinking about  what else do we need to talk about this very topic also in the future. So thank you. Thank you.  Thank you. All right. So that ends our episode for today and we'll see you in our next episode.[Music]