Promoting resilience in nurse education

Alex Berland moderated a virtual panel discussion on "Promoting Resilience in Nurse Education" with colleagues from Nurses International and NextnU at the Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning hosted by Commonwealth of Learning in Calgary during September. The Forum takes place every three years and is considered one of the world’s leading international conferences on open, distance and technology-enabled learning.

IUBAT visiting faculty Helen Ewing helped prepare the content and Nepal-based IUBAT graduate Bimala Rai described her experience developing OER. Miriam Chickering and NI team members joined from USA and South Africa while NextGenU's Erica Frank is based in Vancouver. The panel discussed topics such as helping OER users to align with their local employer and regulator expectations; use of OER to train professional educators; how OER can help promote equity and inclusion; and how values can be transmitted using OER for professional education. The video recording is available on the COL website.

Supplementary reading materials at Bluebell School

Relying only on textbooks may not improve students reading skills, which are foundational to excel in other subjects. We will add graded reading materials in the school library for the children to read before and after the school hours. One teacher will be assigned to facilitate library activities and will identify a brigade of students to work with him/her. The student brigade will distribute books among their classmates, maintain records, and ensure timely return of the books that students will borrow from school. All the teachers will arrange study circles in their class to facilitate discussion among students who borrowed books from the library.

Impact initiatives at Bluebell School

Offering quality education has always been our primary objective in creating Bluebell School. We have recently planned a series of interventions to improve the learning outcomes of the students, beginning with two changes: Increasing instruction time, and providing supplementary reading materials for the children. Teachers will be assigned lead roles for these interventions. OFP staff will brainstorm how to effectively engage students, parents, and the community leaders in broadening the reach and impact of Bluebell. Future blog posts will detail these developments.