ACAO and nursing instructor Mike Evans presents at annual conference

Assistant Chief Academic Officer and Nursing Instructor at Penn State Worthington Scranton, Michael M. Evans, MSN, MSEd, RN, ACNS, CMSRN, CNE, recently attended and presented at the 2013 Nuts and Bolts for Nurse Educators Conference: Nursing Faculty Success from Fundamentals to NCLEX and Beyond in Minneapolis.

At this year's conference Mr. Evans' presented his peer-reviewed poster, "Using Asynchronous Discussion Forums as a New Model for Clinical Post-Conferences" which he researched during the Spring 2012 semester in his class, Nursing 216: Clinical Immersion II: Introduction to Concepts of Leadership.

"In this course, I facilitated the students' clinical experiences, where they worked one-on-one with RNs at local hospitals for seven, eight-hour days. During this rotation, I developed online discussion forums to replace the normal clinical post-conferences that students normally have at the end of the clinical day due to the diverse locations of the students during this experience," he explained. "I found that these discussion forums enhanced student learning, critical thinking, student engagement and student satisfaction."

Mr. Evans also published an article on this particular course's methodology for discussion titled, "Using Asynchronous Discussion Forums for Clinical Post-Conferences" which was published in the March/April journal of MedSurg Matters.

The Nuts and Bolts for Nurse Educators Conference is an annual event that features some of the top educators in the country, with whom participants can work to improve their classroom, clinical and lab learning environments. Attendees also participate in hands-on activities that will help them master practical strategies for learning and assessment in fundamentals, maternal-child, medical-surgical, health assessment and more.

Mr. Evans received his associate and bachelor's degrees in nursing from Penn State University and a master's degree in nursing, with a specialization in adult health and a sub-specialization in nursing education, from Misericordia University. In addition, he earned a Master's in education with a focus in professional studies from Capella University.

He is currently a doctoral student in the School in Nursing at Penn State University.

He resides in Archbald with his wife, Stephanie.