Clinical teleconferencing: bringing the patient to the classroom.

Problem: The confidence to act on clinical judgment, ask for help, and juggle multiple competing priorities is best developed within a clinical setting. Traditional classroom learning, which is often static, does not support learning these skills or help new students learn how to "be" a nurse. Student nurses need frequent and repeated exposure to expert nurses and clinical environments. Traditional teaching methods may not be sufficient to meet these needs.

Method: This project employs a strategy that supplies situated, context-driven learning with the aim of improving clinical reasoning by bringing real-world, real-time clinical scenarios into the classroom via audio conferencing. This classroom teaching strategy is based on the principles of learner-centered teaching, and the aim is to incorporate real-world clinical information into the classroom. Students are introduced to "real-time report" from special care areas as the basis for class activities and discussion.

Findings: Feedback on this model was sought through course evaluation data, focus groups with students, and participating nurses. NCLEX pass rate remained unchanged as a result of this teaching strategy.

Conclusion: In this model, the classroom changes from being a physical place where knowledge is acquired to a place where knowledge is translated from and applied to practice.