NURS 767 Week 8 Practicum Log 3 Example

Practicum Log 3: Midterm Evaluations, a Faculty Meeting, the Last Clinical Days and a Re-Assessment Against the NLN Competencies

Entry 1: Midterm Clinical Evaluations (Week 7, 5 hours)

What happened: I drafted midterm clinical evaluations for two students using the course's clinical evaluation tool, my dated anecdotal notes and the clinical judgment rubric profiles from Weeks 3 and 7. My preceptor rated the same students independently. Our ratings matched on 22 of 24 behaviors. On the two that differed, I had rated one student satisfactory on prioritization and my preceptor had rated her as needing improvement. When we compared notes, my preceptor had seen the student delay calling about a blood pressure of 154/98 for forty minutes, which I had not observed. I then delivered both evaluations, with my preceptor present.

Analysis: This entry involves using assessment and evaluation strategies (Halstead, 2019). Oermann et al. (2018) stress that clinical evaluation must rest on documented observations across time and that instructors see only part of each student's performance. Our disagreement was exactly that: my notes did not include the most important event. I also learned how to deliver a midterm evaluation. I began with the student's own self-rating, which was higher than ours on prioritization, and asked her to talk me through the blood pressure event. She saw the delay herself, and the written goal for the second half, to report any blood pressure of 150/100 or higher within fifteen minutes, came from her.

Change: I will compare notes with any co-instructor before finalizing an evaluation, and I will begin evaluation conferences with the student's own account.

Entry 2: Faculty Meeting Vote (Week 7, 2 hours)

What happened: The full faculty discussed the curriculum committee's proposal to replace four maternal-newborn clinical hours with a simulation day for one term. Two faculty objected that simulation could not replace care of real families; the simulation coordinator presented the timeline data from our quiet-hemorrhage scenario as an example of what simulation could measure that clinical days could not. The proposal passed with an amendment requiring a report to the faculty at the end of the term.

Analysis: This entry relates to functioning within the educational environment and to acting as a change agent and leader (Halstead, 2019). I watched how an evidence-based argument and a concession, the end-of-term report, moved a divided faculty. The objecting faculty were not overruled; their concern became the evaluation question. Speck et al. (2025) describe academic complexity, including governance and shared decision making, as one of the areas new faculty must learn, and this meeting was my first view of it from inside.

Change: When I propose a change as a faculty member, I will bring data and an evaluation plan, and I will invite objections into the plan rather than arguing them down.

Entry 3: The Last Clinical Days (Week 8, 8 hours)

What happened: The student who froze during a hemorrhage in Week 5 cared for a mother whose fundus was boggy at the start of the shift. She massaged the fundus, checked the pad, said aloud "fundus first, then call," notified the nurse and documented the response, all before I reached the room. At the clinical conference, she told the group how she had prepared herself.

Analysis: This entry relates to facilitating learning and facilitating learner development and socialization (Halstead, 2019). The phrase the student used was the one she chose after freezing, rehearsed in debriefing and on the unit. Jacobs et al. (2026) found that clinical judgment scores rise across a program as students gain experience, and I saw a small version of that growth in one student over three weeks. The teaching that helped was not an explanation of the steps, which she already knew, but practice in starting under stress.

Change: I will build a "first words" rehearsal into every emergency simulation I facilitate.

Entry 4: The Preceptor's Final Evaluation (Week 8, 2 hours)

What happened: My preceptor completed the end-of-practicum evaluation in Typhon and reviewed it with me. She rated me as meeting expectations in all areas and above expectations in clinical teaching and rapport with students. Her written comments named two areas for growth: I still answer my own questions too quickly when a group goes quiet, and I need more experience writing and analyzing whole exams rather than individual items. She also wrote that my willingness to ask for criticism made her job easier.

Analysis: The evaluation agrees with my own evidence. The talking problem appeared in the peer observation of my flipped class and again in my first debriefing, and the evaluation gap appears in my own re-assessment. Oermann et al. (2018) describe the educator's growth as continuing well beyond formal preparation, through feedback, reflection and experience, and an honest preceptor evaluation is one of the most useful forms of feedback a new educator receives. That my preceptor's two concerns matched my own suggests that my self-assessment has become more accurate since Week 1, when I rated my clinical teaching as only partly ready and had no way to judge my evaluation skills at all.

Change: I will keep my preceptor's comments with my teaching notes and review them before the first class I teach as a faculty member.

Re-Assessment Against the NLN Competencies

Five ratings changed and three did not. Scholarship did not change because the practicum did not involve it, and I do not want to claim growth I cannot show. New faculty in a competency-based onboarding pilot that paired modules with mentors reported rising teaching confidence (Brennan et al., 2026), and my experience points the same way: the competencies that grew most were the ones in which my preceptor gave me both practice and feedback.

Goals and Objectives

All objectives under Goals 1 and 3 were met. Under Goal 2, the items were written and reviewed and the midterm evaluations were completed, but I did not complete an item analysis because the exam results were released after the practicum ended; my preceptor has agreed to share them, and I will complete the analysis on my own. Under Goal 4, both meetings were attended and the policy review was completed.

Carrying the Practicum Forward

"Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning" (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 9:9). The verse describes the student I hope to keep being as a faculty member. The practicum ended with my ratings higher than they began, but its most useful product is a list of what I still need someone to teach me. In my first faculty role, I will ask for a mentor before the term begins, evaluate one class each term from three sources and keep writing a short log after each clinical day. I will also look for an opportunity in my first year to write up a teaching project for publication, since scholarship is the one competency this teaching practicum did not touch at all and the one a PhD-prepared educator is most expected to advance.

References

Brennan, L., Sikes, A. T., & Brown, M. (2026). Competency-based onboarding: Strengthening organizational culture to support new nurse faculty. Nursing Education Perspectives, 47(5), 281-283. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.NEP.0000000000001578

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

Halstead, J. A. (Ed.). (2019). NLN core competencies for nurse educators: A decade of influence. National League for Nursing.

Jacobs, L. A., Bussard, M. E., Niedzwiecki, E., Lasater, K., & Lavoie, P. (2026). Tracking clinical judgment development in clinical education with the Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric. Nurse Educator, 51(2), 81-86. https://doi.org/10.1097/NNE.0000000000002068

Oermann, M. H., De Gagne, J. C., & Phillips, B. C. (Eds.). (2018). Teaching in nursing and role of the educator: The complete guide to best practice in teaching, evaluation, and curriculum development (2nd ed.). Springer Publishing Company.

Speck, P. M., Milligan, G. W., Hammond, S. A., Hallman, M. G., & Steadman, L. A. (2025). An integrative literature review for the clinical expert transitioning to a nurse faculty role. Journal of Professional Nursing, 59, 78-87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2025.04.003