Online learning can be very beneficial to students who are self motivated and have good time management skills. 

When students become inactive, educators can use several startgies to re-engage them. Additionally, educators can break a three hour lecture into several "chunks" of time that allow students to prepare, work in groups and then actively engage in the lesson. This prevents boredom and inactivity. 

Observing and listening to a procedure or a discussion can allow students to reflect on their own skills and improve their performance.  Passive learning can be one of the first few steps in permanent learning. Students can listen, watch and discuss the steps in a procedure before practicing the procedure for themselves. Think about students who are tasked with watching and critiquing their peers perfrom a task. After watching one or two groups, the student begins to plan what they will do differently when it is their time to perfrom. In this example, the passive learning phase is laying the… >>>

One way  I can incorporate active learning in my role is have the students create NCLEx questions based on patients they have taken care of during clinical. Every question is a real person who needs their nurse to be actively engaged in critial thinking when performing their care. My hope is that this will link clinical and didactic together and improve student learning.

Soft skills are vital to success in any industry. Knowing how to clearly explain a topic to a patient or a client is necessary. In healthcare, people sometimes talk about "bedside manner." In other industries we call it customer service. This is a soft skill that must be learned. 

Computer literacy is essential for todays' workforce. More and more employers are using web-based platforms for continued education and data collection. We must teach students how to use the computer as a tool to perfrom tasks necessary for professional success. 

Comment on Matthew Corbin's post: Yes face to face learning is vastly different from online learning. In a brick and mortar school, students are inseat and infront of a faculty member. The faculty has the ability to speak and see each students' face and body language. In contrast, online learners have to be even more driven and disciplined to succeed. There is no teacher taking attendace; no classmate who always sits next to them. Their facial expressions are not visible on the low resolution camera. This allows online students the opportunity to hide in plain sight in thie class.… >>>

Many students dislike teamwork. Perhaps they have had bad expereinces with group work in previous classes. The fact is that no matter the profession, teamwork is critical for success. As a teacher, it is imperative that group projects are woven in to each course. One way to do that is to create projects where each member must present their part and then the team must display their project as a whiole. This will decrease the complaint that some members did not participate. 

"Learning how to write never ends."  This is true. People must learn how to write for their discipline but also for audiences outside their discipline. Think of a nurse who uses the APA style to write in school and in nursing articles. Now that nurse is tasked to write for a lifestyle magazine, encouraging readers to get healthscreenings. Now the nurse has to write a call to arms, which is very different from academic and healthcare literature. Learning to adapt your writing style to fit the audience, is a skill that is similar to emotional intelligence when "reading the room."