My clinical experience is mainly in the ER. I have over 10 years of experience as an RN in the ER and first worked in neurology and neurosurgery when I graduated. I was always interested in teaching students and developed a love of clinical teaching. My MN focuses on learning in the adult acute care environment and how students link theory to practice. I have completed a further research project in SoTL as a Nexen Scholar at MRU in 2011, where I also looked at how 1st-year students linked theory to practice. Over the years, I have developed an interest in how students learn critical thinking, both in how they read textbooks and in how they apply their new understanding in clinical practice.

Areas of Academic Interest

I am interested in curriculum development and redesign, infusing the concept of clinical judgment into everything I do. I have conducted various SoTL projects focused on the application of theory to practice and the use of narrative within a theory course to learn clinical judgment. More recently, in my role as Assistant Chair, BN Program, I have developed an interest in access and inclusion and am actively exploring how best to respond to the recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015). My journey to Indigenization is ongoing as I learn more about how I would like to respond as an educator to ensure equity for all students. Innovation in assessment of student learning, aligning it with measurable outcomes continues to be another academic interest.

Teaching

I am attuned to the various different ways in which students learn and respond to individual patterns in the learning environment, both in practice and the classroom. I attempt to respond with different strategies to engage students in their learning, foster an appreciation for the subject matter, and facilitate an accountability to it and professional practice, valuing the process of co-creating knowledge in relationship. As an educator, I am in the business of creating critical thinkers who can then apply this knowledge to make effective clinical decisions in practice. I ascribe to Wenger's (1998) thoughts on communities of practice and social learning theory and believe, like him, that learning can be seen as becoming and a search for identity; learning is doing, as in practice; learning is an experience and a search for meaning; and learning is belonging to a community in which knowledge is shared and applied with a common purpose to evoke change. His social learning theory presents a constructivist view of learning where meaningful experience contributes to personal development. I believe that undergraduate nursing students experience uncertainty when they are unable to link critical thinking to an attitude of inquiry, as well as when they reduce critical thinking to a rudimentary application of the nursing process (often out of context). It is my role as a nurse educator to assist in this knowledge translation and foster critical thinking toward effective clinical judgment in practice. There is no certainty in the foundation of knowledge because of knowledge existing as a result of being in relationship with others. The Humanistic Teaching Method (Kleiman, 2007) is one that I live by because "one of the most important duties of a teacher is to give students the wherewithal to examine their own nursing experience in order to derive the values and meanings central to their personal identities" (p. 211). I expect students to come to class, ready to discuss some of their clinical experiences in relation to the material of the current class. Likewise, to provide sufficient scaffolding, I attempt to come to class with my own repertoire of experiences, prepared to flesh out the concepts of the class in this context.

Areas of Instruction

• Health Assessment
• Pathophysiology and Pharmacology
• Adult Health Theory and Practice
• Integrated Professional Practice