Teaching Innovations
Increasingly complex health systems coupled with impending
faculty shortages have driven faculty to develop new models for
teaching. Our expectations for satisfaction of students, faculty,
and clinical partners and improved learning for students have been
vastly surpassed.
Dedicated Education Unit (DEU): The DEU is a partnership between the School
of Nursing and St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in the Treasure Valley. Faculty in the School of
Nursing worked with the staff on one unit in the medical center for months learning from each other.
Faculty became embedded as part of the unit and staff nurses gained expertise in educating students.
The School of Nursing places an average of 30 advanced medical-surgical students per semester on this
unit for an outstanding education. This successful model was then applied to beginning students and a
second DEU is well underway with beginning students. Information on this very successful model can
be found at:
• Walker, E. H., Springer, P. J., Jensen, N., Lazare, P. A., Clavelle, J. T., Johnson, P. L., Lind, B. K.
(2012). The ABCs of DEUs: Best Practices for Implementing a Dedicated Education Unit. Nursing Management(December), 38-44. http://journals.lww.com/nurs
• Springer, P. J., Johnson, P., Lind, B., Walker, E. H., Clavelle, J., Jensen, N. (2012). The Idaho
Dedicated Education Unit Model Cost-effective, high-quality education. Nurse Educator, 37(6),
262-267.
Home Base: Nursing faculty routinely rotate students between units to ensure students are exposed to more types of patients. This technique however does not support deep learning for students.
After studying Cognitive Load Theory, the idea for Home Base was developed. Cognitive load theory
purports that our working memory is limited; but we can design educational experiences to increase
what we are capable of learning by reducing the amount of extraneous cognitive load. Students have
to learn to chart, learn medical equipment and learn how to work with their faculty. These however
examples of extraneous load we can control and reduce. With the Home Base model, students do
their entire medical-surgical rotation on the same unit with the same faculty. Theoretically this model
will increase the amount of difficult material students can learn (intrinsic cognitive load) as students
are not focusing on learning the extraneous information. We are early in the development, however
anecdotal reports show high satisfaction of students, faculty and the staff nurses. Watch for articles as
we develop this model more fully.
Clinical teaching partners: Facing an impending shortage of faculty, the SoN is exploring ways to allow faculty to focus on using