New position in teaching and learning supports undergraduate nursing instructors

Effective January 1, 2017, Tracey Clancy took over the new administrative role in support of teaching and learning in the Faculty of Nursing. 

As director of nursing instructor development, Clancy supports the transition of novice educators into their academic teaching roles. In her new position, she will oversee orientation and development of undergraduate instructors to enhance their teaching and learning knowledge, skills, and capacity.

“Historically when nurses come into educator roles, they are hired for their nursing expertise with the assumption that they’ll be able to translate that knowledge into a teaching context,” says Clancy.

“Often what we find in clinical teaching is that folks come to us and they’re motivated to make an impact on the profession, to contribute to the next generation of nurses. They may be expert practitioners but novice educators.”

To that end, Clancy sees her new role as supporting instructors — whether they’re new or have been teaching for years — and finding out what their development needs are. She says instead of reinventing the wheel, a big part will be communicating where instructors can access current tools for teaching and learning on and off campus, including workshops and courses through the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN), Canadian Nurse Educator Institute (CNEI) and the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA).

She has already begun to engage in informal discussion groups with fellow nursing instructors about their understanding of the faculty’s integrated curriculum and what it means to them. Clancy is also exploring the refinement of a teaching passport, essentially a workbook tool for instructors to reference teaching processes and to look at their growth as educators over time.

“I really appreciate this opportunity to have a very focused and purposeful role in terms of helping other folks on this journey.”

Clancy has been a registered nurse for the past 29 years and started teaching nursing students in clinical practice in 1996. She continued teaching as a sessional instructor until 2008 when she returned to do her master’s degree with a focus in clinical teaching.