Happy Thanksgiving to all RN to BSN Online students!
Dr.
Maggie
Monday, November 23, 2015
Friday, November 20, 2015
Networking with your RN to BSN Online Nursing Degree
One of the most important things to remember as you near
completion of your RN to BSN Online Nursing Degree is to network for future job
opportunities upon graduation. If you had
a practicum experience, be sure to leave with several contacts from that
organization for future reference. Keep
in touch with former professors in order to network for a job. The more people
who know you are completing your Masters in Nursing degree, the better. The
next priority item is an updated social networking profile, and I don’t mean
Facebook! Start a professional profile on LinkedIn (see website below).
LinkedIn at: http://www.linkedin.com/
For pros and cons to using LinkedIn see the webpage below.
LinkedIn has hundreds of job listings and recruiters are
using LinkedIn as a type of initial screening for candidates. The other benefit of LinkedIn is getting in
touch with colleagues you may have lost contact with to see if they have
information about potential jobs.
Getting your name and your new BSN degree out into the workforce for
nursing is just as important as completing your online RN to BSN degree.
For more information go to: http://sxu.edu/academics/colleges_schools/son/under_programs.asp
Monday, November 16, 2015
Dealing With Family, School, and Work Life Balance as an Online RN to BSN Student
Balancing family, school, and a job. is no easy
feat. The balancing act can be done with
some planning and organization. First,
make sure you have a good electronic file system. Create a file for each course using the
number and abbreviation for the name.
You can file material by week or topic (recommended). Second, determine which social activities are
priorities. Birthdays and anniversaries are probably more important than that
book club where you haven’t even read the book.
Third, and most
importantly WORK AHEAD! There is always
going to be a crisis at work, or at home, it is a matter of when not “if”. By working ahead, this allows for the
unexpected without putting you terribly behind in your RN to BSN Online course
work. Working ahead means take a look at what is coming due in the week ahead,
and doing that work on your computer to submit later when it is actually due in
the online RN to BSN class. If you feel
you are miraculously “caught up” with class work, find one small additional
item to do ahead, such as the next week’s discussion. Again, save the work on your computer, and
post when the work is due. This concept
of working ahead will alleviate much of the stress that can be associated with
an RN to BSN online program.
Dr.
Maggie
Friday, November 13, 2015
How to Get the Most Out of RN to BSN Online Nursing Faculty
The facilitation styles of online faculty vary
greatly. Some faculty are in the online
masters in nursing course daily, others only a few times a week. You will be able to tell what type of faculty
you have in the first week of a class.
Look at the pattern of dates for faculty posts in the introduction area
of the course and the first week of discussions. If the dates of posting appear daily, then
you know the pattern of the faculty to plan how far in advance you need to post
questions or send emails. Think about
the timing of faculty being in the course and time your questions
appropriately.
Many online faculty do not go into their course during the
weekend when course assignments are due, so be sure to ask any assignment
questions by mid week. If you are
anticipating a difficult week, be sure to request any needed extensions at
least 24-48 hours before the work is due.
This good communication will go a long way to working well with the
online masters in nursing faculty. (Another good idea related to communication
is providing faculty feedback.
We all like to hear we are doing a good job. If faculty are participative and responsive,
let them know this in your communications with them. On the other side of the situation, save
feedback for improvement for the course evaluation at the end of a course. Completing the course evaluation is key to
providing your Online RN to BSN nursing program faculty and administration much
needed feedback. The good news is that
these evaluations are anonymous and faculty do not see any of the feedback
until after final grades have been submitted.
If you feel you had a particularly poor faculty and course experience,
be sure to encourage your classmates to share their feedback as well so the
evaluation does not look skewed by one or two students, but rather is a
reflection of the class as a whole. The same holds true for positive faculty
and course experiences. The goal for any
organization is as close to 100% evaluation response rates as possible from
students.
If you have a question regarding a grade you received, some
good ways to phrase these types of questions are to start with: “I am somewhat
confused…..” ; I was wondering about ……” and “I was looking for some help
regarding….”. By acknowledging the fact
that there may be a misunderstanding on your part with faculty feedback, a student
can delicately approach the subject of questioning a grade. Remember, faculty are human too, and may make
mistakes (although some faculty do not like to admit this). Appropriate
communication with faculty is a vital part of success in an RN to BSN online
program.
Dr.
Maggie
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Taking Care of Yourself in an Online RN to BSN Program
The link below is a good reminder that nurses, especially nurses in school, need to take care of themselves (smile).
(2min. 47 sec)
Dr.
Maggie
Sunday, November 8, 2015
One Day at a Time for RN to BSN Online Students
One Day
at a Time for RN to BSN Online Students
In online BSN programs, students can get overwhelmed,
especially at the beginning of a term in looking at all the reading and work
which lies ahead. Keep in mind that all
online BSN courses run week to week and often content builds on itself from
week to week. You know the saying: “the
way to eat a big elephant is one bite at a time”. Plan your week’s activities for school/work
and then take each day as it comes. Be
aware of big projects due toward the end of a course and spread the work out
over several weeks.
For example, a research paper can be broken out into parts:
a) decide on a topic and write an introduction to that
topic
b) do a literature search and save potential articles based on their abstracts
c) read and summarize key articles
d) Create an outline of the paper using headings (create headings based on the rubric or grading criteria; remember you are writing to show what you have learned).
b) do a literature search and save potential articles based on their abstracts
c) read and summarize key articles
d) Create an outline of the paper using headings (create headings based on the rubric or grading criteria; remember you are writing to show what you have learned).
There may be times when you need to work ahead in
anticipation of a big event at home or at work; however, more on that in
another blog (smile).
Look
well to this day. Yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision. But
today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow
a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day. – Francis Gray
For more information go to: http://sxu.edu/academics/colleges_schools/son/under_programs.asp
Dr.
Maggie
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Writing Academically
Writing academically is the opposite of nursing
charting. We as nurses -are used to providing the facts, nothing more,
nothing less :-) In scholarly or academic writing, the repetition or
redundancy is desired (it may be because of the volumes of reading a professor
does, the repetition ensures that the professor does not miss any important
points.
So if
you feel you are being repetitive, you are writing in a scholarly manner.
Keep the nouns related to your main topic the same and switch up the verbs, and
adjectives when writing. Make sure each paragraph has a minimum of four
sentences (MEAL method) where: M= Main Point; E= Evidence (citation)
and/or example; A= your
analysis of why this is important or the advantages/disadvantages, compare and
contrast or implications of your E-sentence; L= Link to the next paragraph.
If
you get stuck writing one of the four sentences, just type in blue font
"NEED A " for need an analysis sentence and
then go back later and fill that aspect in your paper. Most nurses find
the "A" and the "L" the most difficult for the reasons I
stated earlier.
Keep
the thesaurus function open in MS word (found under “Tools>Language”) to
help use a variety of verbs. Remember to keep the nouns related to
your main topic the same throughout the paper, using various verbs and
adjectives in the writing. All of this will soon become second nature with
practice.
The
video below tells how to set MS Word (2010) to default APA formatting for a
paper. On the right side of the screen you will also find numerous
videos explaining many other aspects of using MS Word to create APA formatted
papers such as a title page and abstract. You tube is an excellent
source of help for APA and using MS Word.
Dr.
Maggie
Monday, November 2, 2015
Succeeding in an RN to BSN Online Program
One of the challenges in an online RN TO BSN program is
dealing with volumes of reading material.
Online discussions need to be read, and numerous journal articles, and
text book chapters all need to be read in order to learn in the online
classroom. One timesaving way to deal
with the reading is to prioritize what has to be done.
1) Reading assigned articles and text book chapters for the
week should be done first.
2) Read any instructor posted information related to the
week.
3) Read peer information in discussions to help you
understand difficult areas of the course that week.
Sometimes reading
the information aloud to yourself can help the auditory learner who
finds themselves in an online program.
By reading peer information in discussions, you can avoid redundancy in
your own posts PLUS have course concepts explained (possibly better) in a
different way compared to the assigned readings.
The key with getting through the readings is to look at the
learning objectives for the week and the assignments for the week and focus
reading efforts on those areas. Often
times there is “nice to know information” and “need to know” information in the
reading. Focus on the need to know
information when reading by having assignments and discussion questions in
front of you so that you can highlight or use a 2x2 post it note to annotate
while you read. This way of annotation
allows you to quickly go back to the “need to know” information when you sit
down to do your assignments/discussions.
I hope this helps any online RN TO BSN students out there reading the blog…………..
Dr. Maggie
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