The aim of this project is to harmonize and optimize the nurse educator education in Europe by developing and testing a programme for nurse educator education: “Empowering the nurse educators in the changing world”, in total 30 ECTS. At this moment there is no consensus about the qualification requirements or education of nurse educators in Europe even the nurse education is very highly regulated. The world is changing, and prevalence of current health issues is estimated to increase due to population aging and emerging new health issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic are inevitable. Nurse educators need knowledge and skills to apply the new subjects in nurse education curricula. Moreover, the digi-pedagogical competence is becoming more and more necessity. Our project aims to answer to those requirements of nurse educators. The overall aim of this project is to set recommendations for common nurse educator education in Europe. This project is conducted with seven universities from six European countries: Finland (two universities), Germany, Malta, Scotland, Slovakia and Spain. University of Turku, Department of Nursing Science is the coordinating university. The partners represent different parts of Europe and all are very keen on developing the evidence-based nurse educator education. This project also builds up knowledge about the current situation of nurse educator education, competence of nurse educators and their continuing education needs. The project consists of three work packages: WP1 Current situation of Nurse Educators’ competence and education, WP2 Future Health Care Issues and Pedagogical Solutions, and WP3 Recommendations for a New Agenda for Nurse Educator Education in Europe. In the WP1, the aim is to map and analyze the current situation of the nurse educator education and training and scope the current role, tasks and working environments of nurse educators and evaluate the competence of the nurse educators in Europe. The data will be collected via the exciting documents, with surveys and interviewing the educators and administrators. This WP is a basis for the whole project. In the WP2, the aim is to scope the continuous education needs of nurse educators, develop and conduct the education and training program to nurse educators and educator candidates named: Empowering the nurse educators in the changing world. The programme is divided in 5 different study units, 5-10 ECTS each. The topics of the study units are 1) digi-pedagogy and social media in nursing education, 2) global health issues, 3) future nurse education, 4) ethics in nurse educators’ work, and 5) evidence-based teaching in nursing education. The used teaching and learning strategy during the education program is blended learning. Study units 2-4 consist of distance learning methods and environments (e.g. webinars, Moocs, online lessons, social media applications). Contact learning, including intensive week and teacher training is arranged in modules 1 and 5. The total number of students participating the programme is 30, 3-10 from each partner university. The outcomes of the programme will be evaluated after every study unit and in the end of the whole progamme. In addition, the usability of the program will be evaluated. Different validated instruments will be used in evaluations. In the WP3, the aim is to suggest common guidelines for nurse educator education in Europe based on the results of the project and current research on nursing and education and second, to produce a “Handbook for nurse educators” which can be used in educator education and in the work of educators. The handbook will be published as an e-book and be available free for all. Every partner university has certain responsibilities to conduct certain tasks. Management board is set to guide and follow the project process and funding. The results of this project will be disseminated as articles in scientific and professional journals, presentations in international and national conferences and seminars. In the end of the project an international assembly: “New agenda in nurse educator education in Europe” assembly will be organized and the recommendations for nurse educator competence and education requirements are presented. This project promotes educators’ knowledge and competence about current and future health issues, evidence-based teaching methods, ethical competence, utilizing technological and digital teaching methods in modern learning environments to enhance students learning outcomes. This promotes educators’ ability to respond to the rapid changes within society, health care and emerging health problems. After the education participants will be ready to integrate evidence based good practices and new teaching and learning methods into their daily work. This project increases educators’ opportunities for professional development, and the cooperation with individual educators, universities and countries
We wanted to increase knowledge about the current state of nurse educator education, competence and competence requirements in Europe, including clarification of the roles and definition of nurse educator work in different countries. Secondly, we wanted to establish the grounds to a common European nurse educator education. During the project we developed, piloted and tested a modern, future orientated and coherent nurse educator education program “Empowering nurse educators in changing world” (30ECTS) which can be used alongside academic higher education in nursing or health sciences. Thirdly, wanted to produces an internationally adaptable yet European handbook and recommendations for nurse educators, that would focus on the future from the contemporary perspective. We produced a handbook for nurse educators and educator candidates “Empowering future nurse educators” and we provided recommendations for nurse educator qualifications requirements, education, continuing education, educators’ wellbeing and suggestions how to maintain the educators’ competence and organize education for nurse educators. We achieved all these goals.
The European Commission (2017) has stated the importance of higher education teachers to develop their pedagogical competence and strengthen the cooperation between teacher education and training in EU. There is no common regulation of minimum qualifications of nurse educators (Jackson et al. 2009, Salminen et al. 2010, Zlatanovic et al., 2017; Campos Silva et al., 2022), even the nurse education is very regulated in Europe. It has been discussed for decades there is a need to harmonize the nurse educator education in Europe and define minimum qualification requirements for educators (Jackson et al. 2009, European Commission 2017) to guarantee the equal high quality nurse education in Europe. Therefore, this project was applied and focused to develop and test the common nurse educator education in Europe. In this project nurse educator was seen as an educator, who teach the academic content in the educational institutions. This project offered an opportunity for European universities to take the first steps toward a common education program in field of nurse educator education, increase educators’ competence to adopt global and future health issues and utilize digital learning environments in their teaching.