Regina Urban

Nursing Research “Top Ten”
Regina Urban, PhD(c), MSN, RN-BC, CCRN, CNE
Clinical Assistant Professor, College of Nursing and Health Innovation, UT Arlington
[email protected]

Regina has been a nurse for 18 years working in the areas of acute care, nursing staff development, and nursing education. Her clinical background includes experience in the Emergency Department, Intensive Care Unit, Cardiac Catheterization / Electrophysiology Lab, and nursing staff development. She possesses additional certifications in critical care nursing, nursing staff development, and nursing education. During the past five years at UTA, Regina has worked in the undergraduate program in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation teaching pathophysiology and nursing research in online, blended, and in-seat formats. She also works with a small group of critical care students in the hospital setting during their Senior One semester. In addition, Regina is working on completing a PhD in Nursing with research interests in nursing education and in professional transitions faced by newly graduated nurses. Regina’s PLC project: Nursing Research “Top Ten” was created to explore the use of free audience polling systems for use with students as a potential warm-up activity at the beginning of class using the “top 10 questions” of the day. In addition, her goal was to create short videos on the “top ten” most difficult concepts in nursing research to utilize with undergraduate students in a student-centered or flipped classroom blended format.

 

  • Hi Regina,

    O.K., so now I am really curious to try out Socrative! That puts a whole new twist on warm-up activities, and I can’t wait to try this out in the summer course I will be teaching. It will also be a lot of fun for students to use when we review for a test. The fact that it works on cell phones is a godsend! I love it when I can find something FREE they can do on their CELL PHONES to actually practice the language. Funny how there is a lot of stuff they are not aware of, too: my students were blown away the other day when I showed them how they could practice their Spanish by programming Siri to speak to them in Spanish. It never occurs to them that there is another parallel universe out there… 🙂

    I may also experiment with Powtoon. Question: have you ever used any alternative software to make videos, and if so, did you find Powtoon more user-friendly for editing? Were the graphics in your video from a database that Powtoon has with clip-art images, etc.?

    For the record: I used to work for a textbook publisher and directed a lot of recording work in studios for our ancillary materials (dating back to the days of cassettes!), and I was really impressed with how smooth your recording was! (I recorded mine at about 2 a.m. before the deadline and sounded like death warmed over, ha, ha.)

    Awesome job!

    • Regina Urban

      Thanks Catherine! To learn Socrative was easy and fun. It’s very intuitive and I could also write out my questions ahead of time and use them as opening quizzes where they answer all of the questions at once. However, I used it as real-time Q & A and it worked great and gave us the spontaneity and fun I was looking for as an opening activity because they were focused on only one question at a time.

      I have also used Camtasia for video recordings, and I definitely think it is more efficient for creating long recordings with PowerPoint. PowToon is a program that students are not as familiar with and is fun and attention grabbing for short video recordings (say, under 10 minutes). It has a steeper learning curve just at first, but the closest thing I can think of to describe it is sort of like “Scrapbooking Words with Images”. It has graphics within its’ system, or you can upload your own images (including imbedding videos). There are many ways to capture the attention of the person watching when you use PowToon. In addition, the company sends out new ideas all the time.

      My “recording studio” is my closet at home because my office is right next to the mailroom on campus and the walls are thin. Just a good ol’ snowball mic and the recording program within PowToon was all I used to create this one. Thanks Nakia, for suggesting the snowball!! Smart!!! Not very expensive…and it makes great sound! ~ Regina

  • nakiaspope

    I think your response rates on the lectures is interesting, considering that I often hear “students don’t do optional”. It seems like students generally like them and are helpful. Did your students indicate how they used them? As review? As intro? (And Socrative is great!)

  • Regina Urban

    Nakia, I agree. I’m fascinated by the “students don’t do optional” discussion. I teach two really difficult classes in the nursing program (patho and research) and have lots of optional materials for the students to use to increase their understanding / gain mastery of the material. I basically let them know what the required elements of the course are and then point out the “optional extras” that are there to help them. You’d be amazed how a poor showing in the first exam or major assignment will increase their use of these things. I assume as adult learners, they know best what they need to learn the material. I also use online office hours at regular intervals in the course and can reinforce the value of using the “optional stuff” if they are less than satisfied with the grades they are earning by just doing what is required. I also know that if they have a certain number of failures in courses in our program, they may not be able to continue to graduation. I am sure this is an underlying motivator for them.

    I recommended to them that they do their reading first and then listen to / watch the optional videos. I was amazed when several commented in the classroom that they found listening / watching first and then reading the material to be better for them. Several commented that they listened to them again prior to taking the open book quizzes in the course.

  • Kim Breuer

    Loved the Powtoon. How long was the class period? Did you find that Socrative took time away from other activities? Ian curious about the drop off in quiz 2 between course offerings. This seems similar to Stephanie’s result in her accounting course. This reinforces Nakia’s idea that perhaps there is a change in study habits for tests. I wonder if they were more confident that they knew the materials because of the videos and Socrative and spent less time in review. It would be interesting to see if increased engagement/community of inquiry leads to false confidence in knowledge of the basic “testing” facts?

    • Regina Urban

      Kim, great comments! My class period was 3.75 hours long and occurred once a week for six weeks. The rest of the class time for this 3 credit hour class was spent online. Socrative only took about 15 minutes (max) to do. It was also useful because it provided a buffer for those students who arrived slightly late…they could log in or just participate in the discussion at hand as they got settled.

  • Alex Hunnicutt

    I like your presentation. The Powtoon format is very pleasant. Your project reporting was so clear and the results so effectively laid out. I especially appreciated the quantification of student participation and correlation to student performance.
    You’ve convinced me to give Socrative a try. It sounds like a very useful tool to add to my own bag of tricks.

  • Denise Cauble

    Regina, as usual, you are creative and student-centric! I like Socratic a lot. Do you remember how many students can be on this program at one time? I am thinking about my classes of over 80 students.

    • Regina Urban

      On the Socrative website it indicates that 50 is the max. I also think it would be ideal to use it as I have, but to create small groups to answer the question if my class size is over 50.

  • Jenny Roye

    Awesome!!! You are so creative. This adds so much to your courses. Provides active learning and some :”spark” to a subject that has a reputation for being dry (research). Nice job

  • Stephanie Binger Rasmussen

    What a great video! Thanks for sharing! I have occasionally used Kahoot for review questions before exams or at the end of class. Like your students, my classes have loved being able to use their own devices to access something free for in-class learning. My students have been shocked the first time I asked them to actually get out their phones or devices. I hope to do more interactive polling, and will seriously consider doing some of these at the start of class.