>> My name is Dr. Kristie Berkstresser.
And I am a faculty member at Harrisburg Area
Community College in their nursing department.
I'm the Coordinator for the
Practical Nursing Program.
And I also teach at the Pennsylvania
College of Health Sciences in their RN
to BSN program as an adjunct faculty member.
It depends on what day of the week it is.
Within the pre-licensure nursing program,
our students have basically three components
of their program to be successful.
It's a 12-month program.
So depending on what day of the week it
is, either on Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
they would be engaged in clinical activities.
Which is application of what they're learning
in the classroom and the laboratory setting.
Tuesdays, Thursdays would be
classroom or a lecture day,
where I'm teaching the didactic content
that students will then apply
in that clinical setting.
And then for my RN to BSN
students, that, of course,
is primarily lecture and group discussions.
In preparation for a lecture topic, there's a
lot more preparation than what people think.
I always tell new faculty members that I
am helping to mentor or train in that role.
I always figure eight hours of preparation
for every hour in the classroom.
So it's a lot to put together a lecture.
So, and then you're constantly revising
and updating once you have that created.
So it's not like an English
course where, you know,
Nathaniel Hawthorne story
is not going to change.
It is what it is.
It's not going to change.
But health care is constantly
changing and keeping up with that.
So a lot of preparation goes into that.
Then teaching and making sure that
you're teaching to every learning style
that the students in your classroom have.
And I teach to a very diverse population.
I have students in my classroom
that are fresh out of high school.
My oldest student was in her 70's.
I teach to a very wide, I have lots of students
that have English as an additional language.
So it's a very diverse, and I have to meet
all of their needs in that classroom setting
so that they can understand the
content that's being presented.
So not only do I teach the didactic portion.
But then in the clinical
setting, my job is to make sure
that the students are practicing
nursing in a safe fashion.
So allowing the students to do what it is
that they need to do, but also making sure
that they're engaged in safe practice.
And stepping in appropriately to stop
if something is not going to be safe.
And then in the laboratory setting,
I develop and create simulations
where we ask students, without
those cues from faculty.
Which students sometimes rely, I
shouldn't sometimes, all the time,
rely on those little nonverbals or those little
verbal cues that we as faculty give students.
We actually step out of the simulation
room so they're not looking to us
for those verbal and nonverbal cues.
And allow them to engage in a simulation
where, if they do something wrong
and the patient may die, that's okay.
And then we talk about it
in the debriefing portion.
So I develop and create the simulations
then that we do with students as well.