Nursing Department

NURSING ARTS LABORATORY

The goal of the Nursing Arts Laboratory is to create an artificial replication of the real world situation in which students can gain knowledge and psychomotor skills and be able to critically think through complex scenarios in a safe and non-threatening environment. This approach to experiential learning is a ‘learner centric’ educational method, which integrates the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective domains in a non-threatening and safe environment thus ensuring accuracy and competency of skills before the student enters the clinical environment.

Students practice technical skills within a deliberate practice framework. Nursing students participate in a variety of lab-based curricular activities intended to strengthen critical thinking, decision making, delegation, and teamwork skills. In the early undergraduate Nursing curriculum, students learn the necessary physical assessment and psychomotor skills through a deliberate practice model that promotes active and self-directed learning. After demonstrating basic competencies, students are prepared to begin clinical courses where they work alongside faculty and registered nurses to care for patients.

To enhance clinical learning, each clinical course is supplemented with lab sessions that offer opportunities to practice advanced nursing skills and simulations to practice those same skills in the context of a patient case.

During our assigned skills lab exercises, students learn how to apply basic procedural skills, such as administering injections or performing physical examinations.

Equipped with training and teaching resources, manikins, and hospital equipment, our nursing Nursing Arts Laboratory sets a realistic stage for learning and clinical practice. It’s a place where our students can safely hone their skills with the supervision of their instructors without the fear of harming a patient.