Authors

  1. Manderscheid, Amy DNP, RN, AGPCNP-BC, AGNP-C, CMSRN

Article Content

Teaching students in medical-surgical clinical settings is met with many learning moments and begins with an assessment of students' learning style, preferences, strengths, and opportunities for growth. Students express the desire to learn by hands-on application, interaction with patients, active problem-solving, and becoming part of the nursing team and often request to be involved in as much nursing care as possible. In response, a clinical educator designed a method to leverage call lights to meet student learning goals. The educator partnered with students to develop a call light point system to reward students for answering call lights while accruing points based on patient need. Points are allocated on the basis of type of need, whereas safety-related needs (fall alarm, bathroom request) contain more points than routine call lights. Students track their own points and share their results on a weekly basis. Posing a call light challenge has shown to be an effective teaching tool to meet student learning priorities and patient care needs and to support the nursing team (hence, a triple win). The Call Light Challenge evolved into a supportive and engaging learning experience that has resulted in increased confidence, teamwork, problem solving, and overall team morale. Student feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and suggests that the call light challenge is a highly effective teaching strategy. Students are challenged to establish new records of point accrual across semesters and are rewarded with a celebration of meeting their goals and learning objectives.