Removing the Dark Clouds - Vanderbilt University School of Nursing

6
TEACHING VIA VIRTUAL REALITY
The Vanderbilt University School of
Nursing was recently awarded a $1.6
million, three-year grant from Health
Resources Services Administration’s (HRSA)
Innovative Nurse Education Technologies
(INET) Program for the next step in simulation
software management. When
completed, portions may look a lot like
popular gaming systems such as Wii,
Xbox or PlayStation.
Research shows that all of Tennessee’s
nursing schools have some sort of simulation
capabilities ranging from modest task
trainers to practice blood pressure to highfidelity
mannequins. Unfortunately, most
Tennessee nursing schools lack trained
faculty to use simulation to its fullest
potential. At the same time, the nationwide
nursing faculty shortage and a rise
in nursing school applicants is forcing
educators to look at new tools.
“We have simulation experts at VUSN
in areas such as faculty debriefing, but
most schools aren’t that fortunate,” said
Betsy Weiner, Ph.D., R.N., senior associate
dean for Informatics at the VUSN. “It
almost takes a champion at each nursing
school to help others see the benefits.”
Students like Lauren Mallard B.S.N., R.N., who studies between classes in
the Frist Nursing Informatics Center, may benefit from new advances in
simulated learning.
Weiner’s vision for writing this grant
focused on helping nurse faculty to better
manage the simulation experience with
their students. She and her team want to
develop a dashboard for educators that
helps them to measure their own progress
in meeting educational competencies
related to simulation management. Long
term, this dashboard could provide the
same intelligence to nursing students so
that simulation can be better integrated
into the curriculum rather than a piecemeal
approach that is so often used by
many schools.
“The unique thing is that we decided
to use the Second Life environment for one
or more of the simulations,” said Weiner.
Second Life is a three-dimensional
virtual world where participants create a
visual model of themselves (an avatar) and
participate in a community, such as nursing
simulation. Weiner’s group will create
different scenarios using the 3-D graphics
and incorporate video of high-fidelity simulators
and perhaps even patients to help
role-play.
Students will be active in the virtual
reality world at the same time and will be
assigned roles. One module may have an
online lecture hall while another may be
focused on simulation debriefing.
Regardless, Second Life will provide what
video streaming and e-mail exchange cannot:
a richer, interactive experience. At
the same time, nursing faculty will have
an objective evaluation of their own
teaching practices.
“I always end up wanting to do
something the technology won’t allow me
to do, so we are looking forward to working
out all the details,” said Weiner.
The School of Nursing will be working
collaboratively with the University of
Kentucky College of Nursing to develop
and pilot test the work. The goal is to
market the training modules to nursing
educators throughout a 16-state area in
the South, deemed by Healthy People
2010 as having a high incidence of lifethreatening
disease.
– KATHY RIVERS
JOE HOWELL