Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) students engaged in a unique active learning experience in Spring 2009 as they tackled Nursing 652 Transforming The Nation’s Health at the Duke School of Nursing.  Dr. Nancy M. Short regularly challenged students to push far beyond their level of comfort.  One assignment required students to prepare a script, plan interviews and settings and “shoot” a health policy advocacy video.  Students checked out Flip camcorders at the Link and participated in a custom hand-on training workshop provided by CIT. Within a three-week time window, the students used Flip camcorders to film the scenes and edited “draft videos” with the built-in FlipShare software.  After the instructor’s review and approval, eleven of the 23 videos have been launched on the DUSON YouTube Channel and can be seen under the playlist of the Influencing Health Policy.

In addition to the digital video assignment, students in N652 presented oral advocacy presentations to a panel of lobbyists and elected officials, developed a 1 page advocacy fact sheet for a policymaker, and wrote a health issue analysis paper.

Click the image below to watch all of the 11 video clips.

Additional Information

Dr. Short is an alumna of the RWJF Health Policy Fellowship and spent 2005 as a health legislative aide in the office of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Senator Bill Frist.

As a fellow in CIT’s Flexible Learning Spaces Fellowship (2008), Susan Wynn participated in meetings, mini-workshops, and other fellowship activities centered around the concept of ‘flexible learning‘ – specifically focused on the uses of the technology and space arrangements made possible by Duke’s new teaching and learning space, the Link.

Course overview

During Fall 2008, Wynn co-taught EDU 214 (”Society, Schools and Technology”) with Hugh Crumley in Link Classroom 3. The course was designed for undergraduate students enrolled in the Secondary Teacher Preparation Program and for graduate students enrolled in the Masters of Arts in Teaching. Wynn and Crumley created course goals based on the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) and Performance Indicators for Teachers. Students need to demonstrate proficiency in these standards as a requirement when earning their North Carolina teaching license.

The core goals of the course were to prepare students to:

• be able to design lesson plans that demonstrate “best practices” in teaching
• use technology to support student learning
• explore technology applications typically not utilized in a high school classroom setting

Uses of technology and flexible learning spaces

Wynn’s and Crumley’s plans for using the Link’s technology and spaces included:

• using classroom technologies to teach basic HTML skills
• enabling students to create presentation files
• demonstrating uses of interactive technologies to support instruction in each student’s discipline (including Web2.0 resources)
• developing and refining an electronic portfolio (eportfolio) centered on a ‘teaching with technology’ statement
• script, storyboard, film and edit a digital story
• explore other teaching tools, such as wikis, blogs, digital images, etc

Creating digital stories

In the following video, Susan Wynn talks about class activities.

Learning about Flip cameras and YouTube

In this video, Hugh Crumley shows students how to use Flip cameras, then sends them out into the Link’s open spaces to film introductions.