Unexpected COVID-19 Opportunity: Applied Experience for the Nurse Educator Student

Lack of experiential learning in nurse educator (NE) programs may result in students completing didactic coursework with limited or no opportunities to supervise nursing students in a clinical environment. During the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, one organization transformed an educational challenge into an opportunity for NE students.

Programmatic evaluation, using a 10-item Likert scale evaluation tool, was used to obtain feedback from 15 NE students regarding their perceived value of an experiential learning activity.

Aggregate mean evaluation scores ranged from 2.7 to 4.3. An aggregate mean of 4.3 was attributed by the NE students to the possibility of spending additional clinical hours providing oversight to nursing students participating in this process.

Applied experiential learning may enhance the quality of NE students' educational experience, provide needed opportunity for developing critical expertise as a NE, and create a window of opportunity for future application of NE students' experiential learning. [.