You’ve just posted exam grades, and the numbers are not what you hoped. A third of the cohort missed the same cluster of questions on heart failure management. The discussion board posts last week were thin. Two students emailed to say they “studied everything” and still don’t understand what went wrong. When nursing students aren’t learning, we need to find out where something in the system broke down. Let’s look at how to diagnose the problem.

When I accepted my first faculty position, I thought I understood the job: I would teach. Then I received my first workload assignment. There was something about credit hours, clinical ratios, and committee meetings, and I stared at it the way a new grad stares at a 12-lead EKG for the first time. I recognized the words, but not in those particular combinations. Nobody explains faculty workload to clinicians before they make the jump.

This post will break down what concept-based curriculum is, how it differs from competency-based curriculum, and why the two actually work better together.

Most of us were educated in a traditional, content-based model, and then we taught the way we were taught. Now the ground is shifting under the entire discipline of nursing education, and it's happening fast. Chances are you are doing some sort of a curriculum update, whether it’s a total overhaul or course-specific updates. So, let's break down what competency-based curriculum actually is, why nursing education is moving toward it, and what it means for you as a faculty memb

If you're applying for a nursing faculty job, your CV is doing more work than you think. It's not just a list of where you've been. It's the first bit of evidence that a hiring committee sees that you understand what the role actually requires. Formatting choices, section order, and what you choose to highlight all signal whether you're thinking like a clinician or thinking like an educator. Let's work on that, section by section.

Content overload is one of the most common challenges in nursing education, and it doesn't discriminate. It shows up in courses and program across all nursing levels and in all course formats. It plagues first-year adjuncts and seasoned full-time faculty alike. The concern with content overload is that it's costing your students cognitively, emotionally, and academically. The good news? You can teach well with less. Let's talk about how to get there.

The semester is over — and if you're already building a summer to-do list, this is your sign to pause. NP faculty are wired to keep moving, but sprinting straight from finals into a packed development agenda isn't growth. It's just working under a different label. This summer, try a different approach: rest first, then grow. Your fall students — and your future self — will thank you.

My qualitative study on academic nurse leader (ANL) role development was published in Nursing Education Perspectives. I interviewed 18 nurse leaders across the country — program directors, chairpersons, assistant and associate deans, and deans — to understand how they actually developed in their roles. What I found was equal parts validating and sobering. Here are five strategies drawn directly from the findings of this study.

Your graduate nursing students are the not the same “blank slates” that they used to be in their undergraduate programs. These students are nurses. Some of them will have twenty years of professional nursing wisdom, while others will be fresh from a BSN program, and they can all be admitted together in the same cohort. This heterogeneity is not a challenge to be managed. It is a gift to be used. But only if you understand two theoretical frameworks: andragogy & constructivism

If the word accreditation makes your shoulders creep toward your ears, you are not alone. For many NP faculty — especially those new to academia — accreditation can feel like an entirely separate world. One with its own language, its own rituals, and a seemingly endless appetite for documentation. This post breaks it down — plainly, practically, and without the committee-meeting energy.