Connecting Beyond Discussion Board: Integrating Synchronous Seminars into Nurse Practitioner Distance Education

Over the last 10 years, distance education nurse practitioner (NP) programs have increased in numbers across the nation. While multiple modalities for curriculum delivery exist, traditionally distance programs have relied heavily on asynchronous content delivery followed by discussion board.  Although an effective tool, discussion board is often perceived as stagnant and impersonal.  Integrating synchronous seminars into NP distance education provides students with highly engaging weekly interactive sessions.

Modular curricular design affords NP students the ability to asynchronously access preparatory materials including readings, webcasts and videos at their convenience. The self-paced modular approach prepares students for weekly synchronous seminars providing face-to-face interaction with faculty and student colleagues.  Two-hour seminars are conducted in the Adobe classroom with a 1:12 faculty student ratio.  Synchronous seminars help students bridge the didactic content delivered asynchronously and clinical application through interactive case based exploration and clinical conferencing.

Small class size and weekly virtual interaction benefit students and faculty.   Students must be prepared to contribute to discussion and quickly realize hiding in the back of a classroom is not an option.  Novel technology features enhance best practices of traditional pedagogy.  Utilization of break out sessions provides an added dimension for collaborative work.  A “polling” feature gives faculty the ability to identify knowledge gaps anonymously and in real-time.  Teaching materials are easily uploaded to enhance discussion and share resources. 

While synchronous seminars allow for weekly classroom time, scheduling presents challenges.  Session days and times are selected with consideration for time zones variances, convenience and faculty availability.   Recruiting qualified faculty to maintain the low 1:12 faculty student ratio is challenging during a time of nursing faculty shortage.    Technology integrated to enhance learning also bears unique idiosyncrasies.  For example, interruption of seminar sessions due to technical difficulties can hinder the learning process. 

The addition of virtual seminars to distance education programs provides NP students with the connectivity that is often missing from online programs.  Faculty benefit from face to face contact with students and find it more fulfilling than discussion board. Access to Adobe classroom or similar virtual products makes it feasible to implement synchronous instruction in NP programs.