Resource:How to engage nursing programs in I&E
The Event
An event that really stood out and worked well to incorporate multiple disciplines of study like nursing, was an innovation and entrepreneurship RUSH event. This event took place over four days to help and build suspense to the final day of makeathon.
The first night consisted of a movie night. An inspirational entrepreneurial film was used that displayed the aspects of innovation and entrepreneurship. Although the event was not highly attended it was still exposure and advertising throughout the campus that was generating talk and attention.
The second night was a series of pop up events. Each pop up was a different station of ideas. One was based around design thinking, including activities that were applying the principles and techniques used when completing a task using design thinking. Another station broke down the design thinking model further and was strictly prototyping. This would allow the students to get a first hand experience at how amazing design thinking can be.
The third night consisted of a conference where there was a discussion based night to get people expressing their thoughts about design thinking, while also still spreading awareness.
The final night was the makeathon. This was the most attended and most successful night of the RUSH. There were 70 students in attendance from 21 different majors. The students were placed into groups and tasked with prototyping something that allowed them to either survive or escape a deserted island. All groups were full of students from different disciplines.
Target Audience
The audience of this event was all students of different disciplines. However it could easily be targeted to a defined discipline of students such as nursing while not excluding other areas of study. To be more appealing to nursing students you could center the makeathon prompt around a medical problem. Then also advertise this to other fields of study to help promote interdisciplinary group work and learning.
The Message
The main message of this event was to generate more interest and spread awareness of innovation and entrepreneurship. This was advertized through campus with posters as well as word of mouth.
Lessons Learned
The first and third night of this event was not well attended, however the real turnout came in the fourth night. The first three events were still important to increase awareness as well as generate word of mouth from those who attended. Something to keep in mind is your target audience and how best tailor the advertisements and event activities to their interests, while still pushing them outside their comfort zone.
Further Events
Another way that nursing students could be targeted is by getting design thinking and entrepreneurial innovation directly into their curriculum. With nurses their schedules are so packed that it can be difficult for them to justify taking extra time or credit space to learn this vital information.
An example of a class that could be implemented would be to have students go into the hospital and interview people such as doctors, patients, family members of patients, nurses, radiologists, dietary services, sanitation engineers, etc. These interviews would consist of discussions asking what can be done to improve patient care. Once they had conducted a vast collection of interviews then they would synthesize them and identify a common problem, or a problem that they find important to improve. Next, they would prototype a solution to improve this chosen problem. Students would implement their prototype into the clinical setting. This would help to make the design thinking process more concrete as well as demonstrate how in everyday situations this process can be used.
To begin implementing this one or more faculty mentors in the nursing program would have to be on board with the idea and process, as well as be educated in the design thinking process. Then a sponsor would need to be identified as well as a hospital or clinical medical setting to conduct the interviews in. The faculty mentors would have connections to the directors of the nursing program as well as to those that will need to be contacted to put this class into curriculum.
Ideally this class would eventually become required for nursing students. However this can be modified to other disciplines as well as opened up to others to join the class. However, as of all majors, nursing does not have a lot of wiggle room for the curriculum. Thus, it will be difficult for us to justify that this class should be taken by the students. Therefore, that is why we need to push to have the class become required in the curriculum rather than as an elective.
Implementing this type of a class into any disciplines curriculum would allow those students to be exposed to the beautiful way of thinking, design thinking.
