NURS 618 Week 8 Teaching Plan Presentation Example

Teaching Plan Presentation: Seeing It Early and Saying It Out Loud, a Lesson on Clinical Deterioration for Second-Semester Students

Slide 1: The Problem

• Students record abnormal findings
• Few act on them
• Delay can cost a life

Speaker notes: Clinical instructors in our medical-surgical course kept reporting the same pattern: second-semester students documented a rising respiratory rate or a falling blood pressure and then did nothing with it. They were not careless; they did not yet know what the numbers meant together, and they were unsure they had the right to raise an alarm. This presentation describes a three-hour lesson designed to close that gap.

Slide 2: The Learners

• 32 second-semester students
• First acute care rotation
• Can measure, cannot yet interpret trends

Speaker notes: The learners have completed health assessment and fundamentals. They are skilled at obtaining vital signs and doing focused assessments, but they have had little practice interpreting trends over time or deciding when to escalate. Many are anxious about calling providers. Those characteristics shaped every choice in the plan, from the order of the segments to the decision to rehearse the provider call before the simulation.

Slide 3: Objectives

• Calculate an early warning score
• Interpret trends in patient data
• Prioritize actions, including rapid response
• Communicate with SBAR

Speaker notes: The four objectives move from a structured skill to judgment to communication. Each one appears in a strategy and in an evaluation, which is how I kept the plan aligned. I deliberately avoided objectives such as "understand deterioration," which cannot be measured.

Slide 4: Why Speaking Up Is Part of the Content

• Recognition is more than numbers
• Culture and fear delay action
• Students need permission and practice

Speaker notes: A 2026 systematic review of 24 studies of nurses' experiences found that recognizing deterioration depended on situational awareness, teamwork, leadership, intuition and experience, and that fear of criticism delayed escalation (Archer et al., 2026). If fear is part of the problem, practice in speaking up has to be part of the lesson, not an afterthought.

Slide 5: Segment One, the Opening Case

• A patient whose readings each looked acceptable
• Eight hours of slow decline
• Students find what was missed

Speaker notes: The lesson opens with a case in which no single vital sign looked alarming, yet together they told a clear story of decline. Students work in pairs to find the pattern. Starting with a miss, rather than a definition, gets their attention and shows why the rest of the lesson matters. In the practice delivery, three of the four pairs found the pattern within ten minutes, and the fourth found it once I asked them to line the readings up by time instead of by system, a prompt I have now written into the plan.

Slide 6: Segment Two, Early Warning Scores

• Ten-minute walk through the score
• Five patient snapshots scored in pairs
• Answers checked together

Speaker notes: The score turns a jumble of numbers into one signal, which is exactly what a beginner needs. A Korean ward study linked each rise in the score to more nursing time per patient, a useful point for students because it shows the score tracks how much care a patient really needs (Kim et al., 2026). Five practice snapshots in pairs build speed and accuracy before the case begins.

Slide 7: Segment Three, the Unfolding Case

• Released in three stages
• Groups decide whether and when to escalate
• Instructor questions, does not tell

Speaker notes: Most of the learning happens in this segment. Groups receive the case in stages and must decide at each stage what is happening and what to do first. I circulate and ask questions such as "What would change your mind?" rather than giving answers, so the reasoning stays with the students.

Slide 8: Segments Four and Five, SBAR and Simulation

• Every student phones a faculty member playing the provider
• Ten-minute manikin scenario
• Observers track cues

Speaker notes: Each student then rehearses the phone call they dread, delivering SBAR to a faculty member who answers as a courteous provider would. Two groups then manage a brief manikin simulation while others track cues on a sheet. Evidence comparing virtual platforms with manikins for teaching deterioration suggests both can serve this purpose (Rajasekaran et al., 2025), so the plan uses the manikins our lab already owns.

Slide 9: Evaluation

• Snapshot scoring for objective one
• Case decision rubric for two and three
• SBAR checklist for four
• Exit ticket for transfer

Speaker notes: Each objective has its own evaluation, set before the lesson was taught. The exit ticket asks students to name one cue they will watch for in clinical and when they would call for help, which gives an early signal about transfer to practice.

Slide 10: What Happened in the Practice Delivery

• 94% scored four of five snapshots correctly
• Case decisions improved by stage three
• SBAR calls complete but hesitant

Speaker notes: I taught a shortened version to my preceptor's clinical group of eight. Scoring went well, and groups made better decisions by the final stage of the case. SBAR calls contained the right information but many students hesitated before stating a recommendation. That result told me where to put more time.

Slide 11: What I Changed

• More SBAR practice in pairs first
• A recommendation sentence modeled aloud
• Shorter explanation, longer case

Speaker notes: For the full lesson, I added ten minutes of paired SBAR practice before the faculty call and modeled the recommendation sentence aloud, such as "I need you to come and see the patient now." I also cut the early warning score explanation by five minutes, since students learned it quickly, and gave that time to the unfolding case. A second practice delivery with another clinical group will show whether these changes help before the lesson is used with the whole class. If the SBAR calls are still hesitant, I will consider having students practice with staff nurses who volunteer to play the provider, since a familiar unit voice may feel more real than a faculty member.

Slide 12: Reflection and Next Steps

• Teaching is planned, tested, revised
• Students need permission and practice to speak
• Next: clinical follow-up with instructors

Speaker notes: Presenting this plan reminds me that a teaching plan is a hypothesis about learning, tested each time it is taught. Proverbs 16:9 says, "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps" (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016), and I hold my plans with that humility. Next semester, I will ask clinical instructors whether students escalate earlier in the weeks after the lesson, which is the outcome that matters most.

References

Archer, D., Rashidi, A., Kaur, R., Roderick, A., & Gallagher, O. (2026). Nurses' perceptions of their non-technical skills in recognising and responding to clinical deterioration in hospital settings: A systematic review. Journal of Clinical Nursing. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.70497

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Kim, S., Cho, S. H., & Kim, E. (2026). Early warning scores as indicators of nursing hours in general wards: A cross-sectional analysis of inpatient physiological parameters. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 183, Article 105643. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2026.105643

Rajasekaran, R., Zhao, L., Cleary, S., & Harland, J. (2025). The impact of virtual versus mannequin-based simulation on undergraduate nursing students' preparedness for early recognition of clinical deterioration: A systematic review. Nurse Education in Practice, 88, Article 104563. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2025.104563