Academic News

Please join us for displays and a pizza lunch in the library hallway May 6th and 7th, as our students and faculty showcase Nursing: A Leading Force for Change.

The College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba (CRNM) will be honouring two of our nursing faculty with awards on Thursday May 9. Winn Briscoe and Leslie Walsh will be presented with the Award of Excellence in Nursing Education.  The award presentation and dinner is at Canad Inns Polo Park from 5:00-9:00. Tickets are available from pyeates@crnm.mb.ca or (204) 789-0662. No reserved seating. The order deadline is May 2nd.

Congratulations Winn and Leslie!

The Western North-Western Region Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (WNRCASN) recently held their annual nurse educators’ conference in Edmonton on February 21-23, 2013. This conference facilitated the sharing of ideas, strategies, philosophies, and research findings to develop the scholarship of nursing. Several RRC nursing faculty presented at the conference and a brief description of their projects is included.

• Building Self-Efficacy In Scholarly Writing In First Year Nursing Students (Author: Kim Mitchell)

The complex task of researching and writing a scholarly paper is anxiety provoking for students. This presentation detailed the process of developing a course in scholarly writing within the context of delivering course material to an audience of 150-200 students. Preliminary research findings regarding the course’s influence on anxiety and self-efficacy were also presented.

• Arts-based Learning: Creating Art to Reflect on Practice, Reflecting on Art to Inform Practice (Authors: Kendra Rieger, Luanne Hill, Joanne Loughery)

Arts-based learning is an innovative teaching strategy in which learning is designed to occur through the use of one or more art form(s) integrated with subject matter from another academic discipline. This presentation discussed two arts based learning exemplars and the potential for arts-based learning in the current nursing curriculum.

• Arts-based Learning: Analysis of the Concept for Nursing Education (Presented by: Kendra Rieger; Authors: Kendra Rieger and Dr. Wanda Chernomas — University of Manitoba)

There is a call for a significant shift in curricula away from content focused designs and towards developing environments in which learning processes are emphasized and active student engagement is fostered. Arts-based learning (ABL) is an innovative strategy which engages learners and simultaneously connects thoughts with feelings as part of the learning process.  This presentation focuses on a concept analysis of ABL within the nursing education environment.

• Using Client Actors in Nursing Education: The Highest Kind of Fidelity (Authors: Karlene Cifuentes, Brenda Enns, Richel Roque, Jennifer Otto)

The new Baccalaureate Nursing program at Red River College identified a need to integrate a wide variety of innovative teaching approaches.  Using client actors in nursing clinical simulation was one such teaching approach. This presentation discussed the process of integrating client actors into nursing education, the difference between client actor scenarios and standard case studies, and future directions with the approach.

• Professional Identity Development in Nursing Education: A Study in Progress (Presented by Brenda Enns; Authors: Brenda Enns, Virginia Vandall-Walker — Athabaska University)

Positive Proffessional Nursing Identity (PNI) development has been associated with greater satisfaction with one’s work and improved patient outcomes. This presentation focused on preliminary findings from a qualitative grounded theory investigation into positive PNI which has the potential to inform educational and clinical practice changes that could promote new graduates’ abilities to consolidate and enact positive PNIs in practice.

Trying on the Trades carpentry pano. The best of both worlds, information technology and carpentry.

Arrival night in Chicago

• The Art Institute of Chicago
• The Museum of Contemporary Art
• Frank Lloyd Wright Studio and Oak Park
• Wilis (Sears) Tower
• Architectural Riverboat Tour

And of course just the fun of being in such a great city!

The annual group Shot

Nursing students spend much of their time learning to document clinical findings at the bedside. Instructor Tasha Holt and Instructional Designer Claudius Soodeen developed a mobile application to guide first year students in correct procedures and terminology. The project won a 2012 Learning Innovation Award.

Our very own Brenda Enns has been awarded the WNRCASN Graduate Student Research Award. This award, introduced in 2007, is intended to support the research activities of WNRCASN members who are graduate students. It is available to: 1) faculty members who are WNRCASN members and who are engaged in graduate studies; or 2) graduate students at WNRCASN-affiliated institutions. The focus of the research must be related to nursing education. Research within this focus may be directed to any aspect of nursing education, including issues of importance to faculty members or students, strategies pertaining to teaching and learning, or curricular challenges.

Brenda will receive funding up to $2500 for her research study entitled Nursing Identity Development in BN Education. This grounded theory study examines the process of developing a nursing identity during education and in particular, how participants enact their nursing values in their current practice. The ultimate long-term vision, which is the spirit behind this investigation, is to ensure that RNs, our colleagues, and our patients all experience a nursing practice that is congruent with the type of nursing that BN students are formally taught and which is depicted in our Code of Ethics (CNA, 2008) and provincial standards of practice.

Following raves in Barcelona and Paris, you can be one of the few organizations to join Joe Justice in the first Team WIKISPEED workshops in Canada. In each of two “WINNISPEED” workshops June 10th and 11th, Joe will guide participants through the building of a car from scratch to demonstrate how Agile techniques can transform your organization.

After that, you can apply the same concepts and methodologies to your own context (corporate innovation, small hardware/design start-up, service based startup, NGO, education, etc…) and begin to change the world.

The event will be professionally video taped for later release.

Teacher Education students Dylan Power and Aaron Cyr were an integral part of the RRC Rebel Men’s Volleyball team that won the MCAC championship on February 23^rd, 2013 on their home court.  RRC won 3-2 (22-25, 26-28, 25-12, 25-21, 15-12)  and Aaron  Cyr was named Tournament MVP.   MCAC Facebook images

Jennifer Kasprick and Kate Hallett, Pre-service Teachers and Eva Brown, Teacher Education Instructor, Red River College present at the BYTE Conference.
Provide your students with opportunities to develop skills to collaborate globally and to become competitive in a global economy. This session will outline the phases to flatten your classroom and provide examples and resources to implement global education into your curriculum.

Global Education – Tools to Flatten Your Classroom

Videos created by Business/Technology Pre-Service Teachers in Multimedia & Digital Applications and Information and Communications Technology courses: