Capacity building in nurse educators in a Global Leadership Mentoring Community.

Globally, nurse educators participate in the three main role activities of teaching, scholarship, and service. Matching for different global locations and career stages, 12 mentor-mentee pairs completed a one-year coordinated virtual program through Sigma Theta Tau International's Global Leadership Mentoring Community and mentees reported building their nurse educator capacities. The authors describe factors that potentially influence international mentoring such as language, time, technology, and key characteristics of mentoring relationships. Growth in educator roles occurred in the contexts of the culture of academe itself and Boyer's definitions of scholarship. Consistent with Sigma's vision statement, nurse educators have a global presence and responsibility to prepare competent nurses who can advance the health of the world's people. Readers may benefit for future planning of mentoring activities to build capacities in nurse educator roles through international interactions.

Considering a career change to a nursing faculty position? Key interview questions to ask and why.

Nursing is a practice profession that transitions some bedside clinicians to another career, such as a nursing faculty member in a university nursing program. Given the current faculty shortage, many clinicians may be considering this kind of transition. The nurse considering such a career change can benefit from learning about the job expectations of academe and being prepared to ask questions in the initial interview that may impact future satisfaction and retention. Awareness of job expectations in the areas of teaching, scholarship, service, and practice and consideration of key levels of individuals who will participate in the series of interviews provide the background for such questions. The lessons learned presented in this article were written a year after one of the author's initial faculty interviews and reflect on the advantages of preparation.

How to read, interpret, and understand evidence-based literature statistics.

To implement best practices through research utilization, nurses need to read, interpret, and understand literature formatted with evidence-based practice language and statistics. Hypothetical examples highlight 7 terms and their formulas. A scenario to personally calculate such evidence-based practice statistics can be used to enhance personal effectiveness and to teach others.

Strategies to scaffold student learning: applying Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development.

Teaching strategies like modeling, feedback, questioning, instructing, and cognitive structuring are applications of Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. These strategies "scaffold" student learning from assistance by others to self-learning toward the goal of internalization. This higher-order learning stems from interactions with those who have more knowledge than the learner. Practical applications of Vygotsky's theory to any basic nursing education program are presented.

Designing clinical examples to promote pattern recognition: nursing education-based research and practical applications.

Despite carefully planned classroom sessions and richly designed clinical experiences, nurse educators know that, realistically, students will not encounter all of the life-threatening patient situations that require recognition and intervention during these sessions and experiences. However, on graduation, these students will be legally accountable for recognition of these situations and the immediate interventions associated with them. Therefore, the challenge for nurse educators is how to structure didactic interactions that promote pattern recognition in anticipation of such yet-to-be-experienced events.