Nursing
Learning to thrive in the digital world: innovating undergraduate nursing education through Adobe
This project aimed to develop and implement innovative curriculum and the associated assessment in two final year undergraduate nursing units. Both Adobe Creative Cloud Express and Adobe Rush were used to conduct oral presentations in units relating to clinical safety and transition to practice. The project enhanced nursing students’ digital literacy skills by improving student confidence and capabilities in using technology to clearly articulate and communicate their message, while also equipping them with the necessary skills to thrive in the digital world and be better prepared to meet industry expectations.
Resources
1. Undergraduate Project
This healthcare improvement project is intended as an Undergraduate project. The following resources provide instruction around creating an Adobe Express webpage for a presentation addressing a critical issue in healthcare. A suggested assessment criteria sheet is also supplied below.
All of these resources are available to access or download by Swinburne staff via Commons. Alternatively, you find the above resources on the Adobe Education Exchange!
1. Postgraduate Project
This project requires postgraduate students to create a 10-minute video pitch for an online job application to equip them with the necessary skills for post-graduate success.
All of these resources are available to access or download by Swinburne staff via Commons. Alternatively, you find the above resources on the Adobe Education Exchange!
Problem
The use of technology in health is widespread and the rapid pace of advancing technologies means that nurses need to be technology literate to function in their roles and appropriately care for patients. We therefore need to equip our nursing students with the necessary technology literacy skills in their training to ensure they are ready for the workforce. Currently, our undergraduate nursing students have limited exposure to different technologies for learning and therefore, are lacking the confidence when using digital technologies.
Overview
In this project, we developed and implemented innovative curriculum and associated assessment in undergraduate nursing. We adopted multiple programs (Adobe Creative Cloud Express and Adobe Rush) across the two final year Bachelor of Nursing units. The two units were Preparation for Entry to Practice (NUR30002 ) and Clinical Governance and Quality Care (NUR30004). Adobe Creative Cloud Express was used as a communication tool to articulate students’ safety and quality improvement ideas with evidence-based solutions relevant to healthcare. Adobe Rush was used to record and edit online job interviews including reflections on future challenges. This project was the inaugural use of Adobe in the Bachelor of Nursing and therefore, was a pilot for expansion into other nursing units in the future. Below outlines the key steps undertaken as part of the project:
1. Designed an introductory Canvas page about the Adobe programs with detailed explanation of how they were going to be used in the relevant unit.
2. Conducted dedicated a tutorials in each unit to for the Adobe programs (Adobe Rush for NUR30002 and Adobe Creative Cloud Express for NUR30004)
3. Scheduled multiple dedicated online sessions with the Adobe Digital Coaches to support students in the use of Adobe.
4. Designed appropriate assessments for each unit (NUR30002 - An online interview simulation and NUR30004 - A safety and quality improvement scenario).
5. Designed and developed rubrics and instructions for both the learning activities in each unit and assessments.
Emergent Outcomes
As a result of the project, students reported feeling more confident in their ability to use technology to clearly communicate their message. The enhancement of these skills was helpful in empowering students to thrive in the digital world and consequently, be better prepared to meet industry expectations. Supported by the Adobe programs, we enhanced and improved the learning activities around professional communication. Through this project, students developed their graduate attributes particularly in relation to communication, teamwork and digital literacies, all of which are important skills that are transferrable for their future clinical practice.
Digital Literacies
Digital literacies were addressed by:
• A introductory Canvas page about digital literacy including relevance to students’ future careers and instructions about the Adobe Hub
• A dedicated tutorial in each unit introduced students and support from Adobe Digital Coaches
• Adobe Creative Cloud Express Spark, as a communication tool, allowed students to articulate safety and quality improvement ideas with evidence-based solutions relevant to healthcare which supported learners to become active agents of change
• Adobe Rush supported students to create an engaging narrative in a professional manner that can be used in future workforce presentation
• Aspects of in-class learning activities centred around the Adobe products acted as a formative assessment with opportunity for academics to provide feedback for students’ final summative assessments.
Our Learnings
We saw this project as an opportunity to enhance students’ communication skills (via improved articulation of their arguments), quality of presentation skills and overall develop their professional skills for articulation into future nursing roles. However, there were some challenges, as students were hesitant learn a new program. This was overcome by us role modelling the use of Rush (videos on Canvas) and Adobe Creative Cloud Express (tutorial presentations). Additionally, opportunities were provided through tutorial activities, where students developed a formative presentation after investigating an associated topic.
On reflection, we realised that Adobe needs to be introduced in Year 1 to build initial skills; then scaffolded across the course to optimise student learning. To enhance and promote student engagement with the Adobe we suggest:
• Providing more examples of assessments
• Including Formative activities in class
• Providing targeted videos that demonstrate the application of Adobe programs relevant to a specific assessment
• Including Adobe coaching sessions as part of training or a graduate attribute.
We also reflected on our learning about teaching students to use Adobe. Our confidence in using these products has improved both in classroom and through providing student support. Role modelling was an important behaviour to foster student uptake.
Impact data
What emerged throughout the project was students’ improvements in digital literacy, capabilities and confidence to engage with Adobe Rush and Spark, resulting in polished, professional presentations. This was evidenced by:
• Students adopting a critical lens to communicate their ability to interpret and challenge evidence, therefore providing authentic improvements for practice
• Improved learning outcomes for students with different learning styles
• Effective communication and teamwork capabilities evidence by articulating their message to persuade the audience that: (1) they are a highly sought after competent graduate nurse, and (2) they can suggest a valid quality improvement strategy to mitigate risk and improve patient safety and quality of care
Students’ responses to survey questions (See images below).
Further to our student surveys we have exponential growth in the uptake of Adobe in the Bachelor of Nursing - planned and unplanned. Once academics were confident teaching, using, and designing assessments incorporating Adobe, we utilised examples from the Adobe Education Exchange and our knowledge to implement an Infographic assessment using Adobe Creative Cloud Express. In subsequent units, students were provided a choice of how they would like to undertake oral presentations, and many chose Adobe Creative Cloud Express. Finally, in our nursing projects unit a group developed a website to promote mindfulness for nursing staff using Adobe Spark as part of their deliverables.