The University of Kentucky Prepares Nursing Students for the Unpredictable With Articulate 360

The Challenge

UK College of Nursing needed a fast, flexible solution for effective online learning

For the College of Nursing, online learning plays an integral role in asynchronous education for both faculty and students. This applies not only to its fully online graduate courses but also to its in-person undergraduate courses, where online pre-work lays the groundwork for live lessons. But with an instructional design team of just two people, the college requires software solutions that allow them to produce outstanding online learning as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

Previously, the college used Adobe Captivate to develop e-learning modules. But in 2021, Jesse Stallsworth, Director of Instructional Design and Curriculum Development, realized the team needed faster, more flexible tools. They required software that would enable them to better balance speed and innovation when producing e-learning.

In the search for alternative solutions, Articulate stood out. “It’s the industry standard,” says Stallsworth. So, the instructional design team began creating courses with Articulate 360—demonstrating its capabilities to colleagues across the university and ultimately securing approval for implementation. 

“Now, every time Articulate comes up for renewal, it’s a no-brainer for the budget folks,” says Stallsworth. “They know it’s a must-have.”

The Answer

With Articulate 360, UK College of Nursing improves the efficiency of creating high-quality courses

Today, the College of Nursing uses both Storyline and Rise to create courses. Often, the team builds courses from scratch. Other times, they revamp older Captivate or PowerPoint files with Articulate—making them more effective with knowledge checks, quizzes, and visuals. They also frequently lean on AI Assistant to speed up development and collaboration.

When working with Rise, the instructional design team typically leverages microlearning to deliver bite-sized experiences. One such example is “Skill Spark”—a monthly series on instructional design best practices. As more faculty outside of instructional design collaborate on courses, this series empowers them with essential design skills. So far, the program has received rave reviews from participating faculty. “I created much of the content with the AI functions in Rise,” says Amanda Trent, Instructional Designer. “I got a lot of really terrific, very user-friendly, approachable text from AI Assistant.”

Stallsworth, meanwhile, has found AI Assistant to be particularly helpful at generating knowledge checks. In one example, Stallsworth worked with a student to create a Rise course called Skin Conditions Across Skin Variations. While he was initially skeptical, Stallsworth was impressed with the quality of the knowledge checks generated by AI.

“Our subject matter experts are faculty, so I send any AI-generated knowledge checks to them and ask, ‘Is this accurate?’” says Stallsworth. “Nine times out of ten, they’ll say, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’d ask on an exam or a quiz.’”

Ultimately, the team finds that AI Assistant saves them significant time creating and collaborating on courses. They estimate that subject matter review alone is 75% faster with AI Assistant.

For modules requiring a heavier cause-and-effect element, the instructional design team chooses Storyline, using branching scenarios to mirror the dynamic nature of the nurse-patient relationship. In one such example, Trent created a Storyline course on Conducting an Inclusive Health History Questionnaire. A faculty member wanted to make sure that students knew how to approach a patient effectively—and that they understood how certain actions might encourage the patient to open up, while others might set the interaction back.

“We wanted students to choose their own path and experience the impact of their choices,” says Trent. “Storyline was able to capture everything we needed, encompassing the nuances in the patient-nurse interaction. That course still gets carried over semester after semester.”

Unlocking Human Potential

UK College of Nursing creates nuanced Articulate courses that prepare students for their licensing exams and beyond

The nuance that the team is able to capture in Articulate has been particularly helpful in preparing students to pass their licensing exam: the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX). Recently, the Next Generation NCLEX was launched, and the exam format evolved from mostly multiple choice questions to a case study format with complex question matrices. 

“We have a phenomenal pass rate here in the UK College of Nursing,” says Stallsworth. “We needed to keep that up and prepare students for what they would actually see while taking their boards.” 

To accomplish this, the instructional design team adds Next-Gen NCLEX questions to their courses. This gives students exposure to those types of questions throughout their entire program—preparing them more effectively for their licensing exam as well as their overall nursing career. 

“With the health sciences, you need to be able to accommodate nuance and emulate the real world as much as you can,” says Trent. “You also don’t want students’ first experience with a piece of information to be when they’re dealing with a patient on their own. With Storyline, we’re able to show them those causes and effects before they hit the hospital floor.”

The University of Kentucky’s College of Nursing creates dynamic, nuanced e-learning courses that lay the groundwork for students’ future nursing careers.