Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence

Nursing students are showing difficulty passing a 20 question test encompassing basic math skills.

In Spring 2009, only 17 of 45 students passed the exam on their first attempt. Students demonstrated careless math errors and not retaining information learned during 1st semester Nursing courses.

The course needs to be offered early in the program to help students perform better on these tests.

Courtney Nagle, Lecturer in Mathematics worked closely with nursing faculty Jo Anne Carrick and Margo Kertis to integrate healthcare applications into the standard College Algebra curriculum.

Courtney Nagle “shadowed” healthcare professionals to experience first hand the mathematics used in their daily work.

Courtney Nagle attended seminar, A Day in the Life of a Nurse, given by Margo Kertis in which mathematics used by nurses was presented.

Math 21 for Nurses was taught for the first time in Fall 2008.

The course covered the standard Math 21 syllabus.

Each lesson began with a Motivation Example to show students how the material related to the healthcare field.

Additional Application Exercises were presented after the section content was covered to give students additional practice applying the content in a healthcare setting. These problems were often worked on in small groups.

Course Syllabus Sample Motivation Question

Sections 3.1 and 3.2 Section 6.7

Sample Additional Application Problems Chapter 3 Additional Exercises

A pre- and post- course survey was administered to analyze students’ overall perception of the course.

Pre-Survey Post-Survey

Results from the Survey SRTE Results (On scale from 1-7 with 1

the lowest rating and 7 the highest) Overall Quality of Course 6.20 Overall Quality of Instructor 6.47

Continue to offer Math 21 for Nurses every Fall semester.

Track progress of nursing students who complete Math 21 for nurses for comparison with their peers who have not taken the course.

Track progress of students who hope to enter nursing program who have completed Math 21 for nurses.

Continue to improve and modify current Math 21 for Nurses curriculum by introducing more nursing content into the course.