1. Data can help you maximize learning outcomes with major efficiency

Rosemary Samia, MSN, RN, CNS, CHSE, Director of the Center for Clinical Education & Research at the University of Massachusetts Boston, introduced peer-to-peer assessment and evaluation of skills practice using SimCapture for Skills for her school's health assessment and fundamentals of nursing courses in the first clinical semester. SimCapture for Skills brings faculty closer to students by combining the effectiveness of the peer-to-peer learning methodology with digital assessment and evaluation tools. 
 
Under the supervision of a grad student or simulation educator, groups of three students take turns performing the skill as the learner, assessing and evaluating another person doing the skill as the facilitator, and having the skill done on themselves as the patient.

Looking at student test scores after implementing this approach, Rosemary found that the lab faculty who used peer-to-peer on a regular basis had students with much higher first-time pass results than other groups. "We could see that this was a strategy that was helpful," she explained.

Using SimCapture for Skills for practice time resulted in a decrease from 60 retakes to 9 retakes from one semester to the next.

In an effort to increase efficiencies, UMass Boston also turned to the peer-to-peer approach to streamline their remediation process. 

"Nursing programs are being challenged with all sorts of issues. We’ve got lower faculty, higher turnover, our cohorts are growing in size – and so we needed to be really strategic about how we approached remediation because it wasn’t an option to water that process down."

- Rosemary Samia, MSN, RN, CNS, CHSE
Director, Center for Clinical Education & Research, University of Massachusetts Boston

Using SimCapture for Skills allowed them to remediate 30 students per hour, with fewer faculty.