Each semester the fundamental nursing instructors have to evaluate 45 nursing students on 24 different skills. Each skill takes about 10 minutes to evaluate. This equates to 10,800 minutes or 180 hours of class time to complete. The students become frustrated because they aren’t getting signed off and the instructors become overwhelmed because there just isn’t enough time to observe the students. If the student makes a mistake on the skill, the skill needs to be repeated, which takes more time from class. With the help of Michelle Autry, the fundamentals of nursing instructors are now allowing students to use the flip camera to take a video of the skills that they need to demonstrate competency. Students have a choice to either submit a video of their skills or to have the traditional evaluation by the instructor. Students embraced the idea of taping their skills. One of the students stated, “It is a great use of technology in the classroom.” The instructors can view the video tapes through Moodle and give the students feedback. Instead of using lots of hours of class time, open lab time, office hour time, instructors can view the video tapes from anywhere and at any time. Hopefully, student and faculty frustration will decrease and class time can be used for learning and not having students stand in line waiting for their turn to have their skills evaluated.

There are several advantages of using the video recordings. Instructors can show the excellent videos in future classes to help teach skills. Also, the instructor can share the observations with the student. The instructor can use the video as “an instant replay” and show where errors occurred. There are five sections of the nursing lab with four different instructors. Before skills are graded, instructors can be given the rubric of the skill being tested. Instructors can view one of the videos and then each instructor can grade the scenario to ensure that all of the instructors are using the same criteria and obtain the same score when grading a student. This semester the fundamental nursing instructors are trialing the use of the recordings, and next semester adjustments can be made to improve the system.