Authors

  1. Kelly, Susan H. EdD, MSN, RN, CMSRN, CNE, CHSE

Article Content

Pathophysiology is a required course in most nursing programs, and the sheer mention may cause apprehension among students. Students may not have retained relevant content from their bioscience courses, and with virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, educators needed to find ways to engage student participation in a virtual platform. Our nursing school used one of the widely available web-based interactive applications offered online at no cost. Nearpod (http://www.nearpod.com) allowed faculty teaching pathophysiology to create various activities consisting of multiple-choice and short-answer questions along with short videos for discussion. Activities and questions focused on content areas covered in class. Students signed into the activity at the start of class as faculty engaged students in correct responses and rationales. This allowed for instant feedback and low-stakes evaluation of student knowledge and served as a guide for faculty on content to focus on in the classroom. The activities worked well with teaching difficult concepts with the hormones involved in endocrine disorders such as hypo/hyperthyroidism, Cushing syndrome, and diabetes insipidus. Questions and activities were created on concepts such as differentiating the stages of acute renal insufficiency and understanding ventilation and perfusion with acute respiratory distress syndrome. Faculty created shared student-paced activities to complete prior to the next class and created questions in Nearpod to help students in preparation for an examination. Students responded well to the activities and requested them as a review for all pathophysiology concepts.