Preparing Future Nurse Educators to Teach in the Online Environment

Background: With the proliferation of online courses in nursing education and professional staff development, future nurse educators must be prepared to teach online. The purpose of this article is to present an educational innovation created and evaluated to prepare future nurse educators to develop, design, and deliver an online learning module for distance education. Method: A combination of instructional scaffolding and applied learning was used to teach nurse educator students how to facilitate learning in an online module. Results: Analyses of student assignment scores, student reflections, and faculty observations demonstrated the instructional strategies were effective to prepare students to develop, design, and deliver education online. Conclusion: Instructional scaffolding and applied learning enhances student engagement and effectively prepares nurse educator students to teach online. The strategies are easily adaptable to diverse academic and professional development settings and various learning management systems.