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ELEVATE & EDUCATE:
TRANSFORMING NURSING EDUCATION
JUNE 16-20, 2025
PRECONFERENCES
Monday, June 24th
1230pm - 430pm
Navigating the Waters:
Building and Sustaining a Collaborative and Effective Team
Dr. Kelly Dries and Dr. Virginia Wangerin
Safe travel requires every team member preforming at their best. We sustain a
team through a culture of civility, mentoring, and embracing change. This session will address team development and navigating with clear vision whether the waves are calm or stormy.
Explore strategies to support professional development beginning with new faculty mentoring and building through retirement.
Identify strategies to break the cycle of incivility in nursing education and practice.
Describe the consequences of incivility across the nursing profession.
Discuss a plan to support collaborative and successful nursing teams.
Dr. Kelly Dries
PhD, RN
Dr. Kelly J. Dries has more than 25 years of experience as a transformational leader and nurse educator at the LPN, ADN, BSN, and MSN levels. She has demonstrated success in higher education, specifically leading a broad range of nursing programs, a history of academic enterprise impact, along with expertise in mastering academic, programmatic, and operational challenges. She possesses the ability to successfully manage people, systems, and resources effectively to accomplish the mission of the institution. She offers notable success in analyzing academic, programmatic, and operational needs, developing leading-edge solutions, and devising strategies that ensure the delivery of excellence in academic teaching and learning. Moreover, her professional background includes the ability to collaborate with strategic partners and motivate teams to consistently achieve core objectives. She has an outstanding reputation for integrity, collaboration, innovation and results and is dedicated to the ideals of providing opportunities to all faculty, staff and students. In her role as the NurseTim Inc. Director of Consultations, Dr. Dries is committed to bringing innovation, enthusiasm, and a strategic vision to organizations.
Dr. Virginia Wangerin
PhD, RN, CNE
Dr. Virginia "Ginny" Wangerin is an educator, consultant, and speaker with over 40 years of experience in nursing. She has taught at the ADN, BSN and graduate level, and most recently developed and implemented the first nursing program at Iowa State University. Dr. Wangerin is recognized as a lifelong leader and nursing advocate, serving on numerous committees and boards, advocating for the profession and at-risk populations. As a nurse education leader, she has developed and implemented concurrent enrollment programs and concept-based curriculum. Dr. Wangerin is a consultant and speaker for accreditation, curriculum development, learning strategies and outcomes assessment.
Tuesday, June 25th,
800am - 500pm
Does your Classroom need CPR?
Making Nursing Education Come to Life
Dr. Cherie Reber and Dr. Nicole Heimgartner
This session covers various topics that address ways to bring the nursing “classroom” to life, whether in the didactic, simulation, or clinical environment. Attendees will be introduced through an engaging and interactive presentation to evidence-based ways of teaching diverse adult learners. Highlights will include cultivating a culture of inquiry with nursing students, handling common concerns today’s nurse educator faces when working with students, facilitating
engaging and dynamic experiences without using thousands of PowerPoint slides, using NCLEX NGN questions to teach with, and implementing rapid-fire clinical judgment ideas to introduce concepts and foster clinical judgment.
Discuss how using andragogy to teach adult nursing students benefits the learner.
Describe why "less is more" when active learning strategies are used in nursing
education.
Discuss how a culture of inquiry fosters active learning.
Compare effective ways of addressing common concerns nurse educators experience when teaching.
• Describe why "less is more" when active learning strategies are used in nursing
education.
Describe ways to use NCLEX NGN questions when teaching nursing
Explain at least three active learning strategies that can be implemented in the class, clinical, or simulation environments that enhance clinical judgment.
Dr. Cherie Rebar
PhD, MBA, RN, CNE, CNEcl, COI, FAADN
Dr. Nicole Heimgartner
DNP, RN, CNE, CNEcl, COI
Dr. Cherie Rebar and Dr. Nicole Heimgartner have worked together as professional nurse educators since 2005. Representing decades of experience, they both actively teach full time, consult with nursing programs nationwide and in Canada, serve as subject matter experts, and author multiple nursing textbooks and associated resources. They are regarded as experts in curriculum design, program accreditation, NGN, and clinical judgment. Their most prized publication is Medical-Surgical Nursing: Concepts for Clinical Judgment and Collaborative Care with Donna Ignatavicius, with whom they began collaborating in 2007. They are frequent podium presenters at numerous nationally recognized nursing and nursing education venues, and are both proud to be recognized as Fellows of the Academy of Associate Degree Nursing (FAADN). Drs. Rebar and Heimgartner are certified nurse educators, certified academic clinical educators, and certified online instructors. Their shared mission is to empower faculty, engage nursing students, and use best practice in academia to foster the nursing profession forward.