Experienced nurses can redefine their nursing careers by transitioning to nurse education. By becoming a nurse educator, a nurse can move from clinical practice to focus on cultivating future generations of nursing professionals. Pursuing higher education is the best first step when considering how to become a nurse educator.
Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) programs offer nurse education curricula that discuss the foremost theories and practices used in nurse education. Upon graduation from an MSN program, nurses often find they’re equipped to develop nursing curricula, teach courses, and contribute to nursing academia as a whole.
A Day in the Life of a Nurse Educator
In academic settings, nurse educators advise students, conduct research, write grant proposals, and ensure their clinical skills are current with the latest developments in the nursing profession. Nurse educators are active in professional associations — they participate in peer reviews and take leadership roles in the academic community. They can teach in a classroom or clinical setting. Some also serve as adjunct faculty members at nursing colleges, while others work in health care facilities.
Nurse educators are primarily responsible for designing and teaching the nursing curriculum. They draw from their firsthand clinical experience when developing their curricula, tailoring lessons to their students. Some nursing programs lead to a degree or a certificate in nursing, while others are less formal and are designed for the training needs of nurses and nursing students. Nurse educators help guide and evaluate the progress of students, documenting educational outcomes in a timely manner.
Beyond the technical training, nurse educators prepare nursing staff to provide both acute and preventive care, and to participate in advocacy and patient education. Health education also encompasses community care, which encourages healthy lifestyle choices and holistic patient care.
Nurse Educator Requirements
Those wondering how to become a nurse educator should consider the education and skill requirements. Nurse educators must be adept at evaluating students’ learning needs and using their observations to implement optimal teaching strategies. Online MSN courses on curriculum development and teaching strategies are critical to mastering this skill set. Nurse educators can also prepare students to take the state licensing NCLEX examination.
Before qualifying for a teaching position, nurse educators must gain work experience in clinical, research, and other health care settings. Certification programs for nurse educators may allow them to teach various specialties in health education, such as geriatrics, community health outreach, and family health.
The nurse educator requirements break down as follows.
Step One: Earn a Bachelor’s Degree
Choosing an undergraduate program in nursing starts by confirming that a school is accredited. The university or college itself needs to be accredited, as well as its nursing program. Baccalaureate nursing schools must be approved by the state board of nursing for graduates to take the licensure examinations of the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN). An undergraduate program must also meet the requirements of a nursing accreditation group recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.
BSN programs prepare students for emerging decentralized health care systems. Today, nurses are more likely to work in outpatient facilities, specialty clinics, community centers, and private businesses.
The BSN degree increasingly serves as the foundation for postgraduate studies in advanced nursing professions such as nurse educators. Undergraduate coursework goes beyond anatomy, chemistry, and other staples to include health promotion, genetic screening, family planning, home health care, and disease prevention. Nursing students need to understand both the social and environmental conditions that affect their patients’ health.
Step Two: Earn a Master’s Degree
An MSN or other postgraduate degree is a key requirement when considering becoming a nurse educator. MSN programs build on the broad education of a bachelor’s degree and focus on a single practice area, such as family nurse practitioner, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner, or nurse educator. Students learn scientific theories and concepts, as well as innovative approaches to the management of health care and enhanced health care.
An important part of the master’s program is the development of leadership and interpersonal skills. A successful career as a nurse educator also entails acting as a role model and ambassador for the nursing profession. For example, the MSN Nurse Educator program at Ohio University includes courses in academic nursing and teaching strategies in nursing, both of which will serve a nurse educator well in developing teaching techniques and evidence-based instructional strategies.
Many students in postgraduate nursing programs work while completing their degrees, so program flexibility can be important for fitting classwork into busy work schedules. MSN programs that offer 100% online coursework have made meeting the nurse educator requirements far more convenient for those students with work and family obligations.
Step Three: Gain Work Experience
An important aspect of how to become a nurse educator involves acquiring the knowledge and acumen to instruct students in a nursing specialty. It is only with hands-on clinical experience that a nurse educator can provide students with practical skills to meet their patients’ health care needs.
Experience is a critical component of the evidence-based nursing education promoted by NCSBN. In evidence-based nursing education, students learn how to view all available information when considering a treatment plan. For example, the patient’s medical history, the attending physician’s examination notes, and details about the patient’s work and living situation all contribute to determining the best course of action.
Nurse Educator Training
Nurse educators need a flexible set of skills to perform well in both academic and clinical settings. Master of Science in Nursing programs can point student nurses in the right direction by offering them the opportunity to develop the following practical skills.
- Leadership: Nurse educators must become leaders who can set meaningful educational goals for their students and implement plans that can help them achieve those goals. To this end, MSN programs cover the nurse educator’s role as a leader in the classroom as part of their nurse educator training.
- Mentorship: While leadership is a way to set goals and drive students toward them, nurse educators use mentorship to leverage their own experience and knowledge to guide others. Mentorship skills allow educators to maximize their impact on their students’ education.
- Research: As members of academia, nurse educators must also contribute to the study of nursing practice. Nurse educators participate in research and collaborate with many other disciplines to develop curricula that balance the practical and theoretical aspects of the nursing field.
- Interpersonal Communication and Presentation: Communication is central to education, as students are more likely to understand information that has been communicated effectively. Communication skills are also valuable to faculty members, as a good communicator is well equipped to present research findings to others and network with peers.
In addition to delivering their own lessons, nurse educators may also be tasked with evaluating the performance of other nurse education programs. This involves reviewing other educators’ methods and consulting with them directly or through communication with management to improve their performance. To prepare their students for these administrative responsibilities, MSN programs also highlight a nurse’s role as a member of the faculty.
Nurse Educator Core Competencies
The National League for Nursing’s nurse educator core competencies are intended to allow faculty to illustrate the many dimensions of the profession. The first two competencies are to facilitate learning and to imbue their students with the values and standard practices of the nursing profession. Nurse educators devise methods for assessing student progress in all areas of the curricula, whether in classrooms, labs, or clinical settings.
Other competencies that are valuable to nurse educator training include evaluating program outcomes; improving the competency of nurse educators in their many different roles; and effectively managing the political, social, and economic forces that impact the nursing education environment. When considering how to become a nurse educator, it’s important to remember that it involves a continuous process of learning and adapting to new situations.
Career Specializations
The specialties in clinical nurse education include family medicine, oncology, psychiatry, cardiology, pediatrics, and acute care. Certified nurse educators with master’s degrees in nursing and appropriate clinical experience have a choice of specializations, although some employers look for candidates with teaching experience. As nurse educators advance in their careers, they may also seek opportunities to become public health nurses; clinical faculty members; continuing education specialists; staff development officers; or professors, deans, or associate deans of nursing schools.
Some nursing specialties are growing faster than others, including geriatrics, informatics, and care coordination. Nurse educators who work for general medicine and surgical hospitals have an annual salary of $119,050, according to 2020 data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Directly behind, with an annual mean wage of $95,430, are nurse educators employed by psychiatric and substance abuse hospitals. The annual mean salary for postsecondary nursing instructors, on the whole, is $84,060. However, those in the 90th percentile are making upward of $133,000. These statistics support the fact that there is plenty of income potential as a nurse educator.
Work Environment and Employment Opportunities
A growing number of nurse educators work in practice settings, where they evaluate the skills of nurses in clinics and hospitals. They collaborate with nurses and nurse managers to devise learning strategies that bolster critical clinical skills. Their students include recent high school graduates who are new to the nursing field, nurses pursuing postgraduate degrees, and practicing nurses who want to learn specialty medical skills.
By splitting their time between the classroom and clinical environments, nurse educators play a pivotal role in creating, implementing, analyzing, and revising nursing programs at academic and continuing education institutions. These nursing programs include those that confer degrees and certificates, as well as continuing education programs that are less formal and more focused on specific health topics.
The demand for nurse educators is expected to skyrocket in the coming years as baby boomers age and average life expectancies increase. The BLS forecasts that the job outlook for registered nurses will increase by an estimated 9% from 2020 to 2030. This equates to about 276,800 additional RNs by 2030. However, the country will still find itself in a nursing shortfall, according to the International Council of Nurses, which projects that 4.7 million nurses will be retired by 2030. These statistics make it all the more important that RNs complete their nurse educator training so they may help usher in the next generation of RNs.
Learn More About How to Become a Nurse Educator
Education, training, and experience are critical when considering how to become a nurse educator. Aspiring nurse educators are likely to find that completing an advanced degree, such as the online Master of Science in Nursing from Ohio University, can provide them with the skills and acumen to be successful in their role. It will also provide nurse educators with the knowledge and techniques to bring on the next generation of nurses, thereby helping offset the current nursing shortage.
Discover how the online MSN from Ohio University can help you develop the teaching techniques and evidence-based instructional strategies to be an effective nurse educator.
Recommended Readings
How Nurse Educators Use Simulation as Teaching Tools
Why Get a Master’s in Nursing?
Sources:
American Association of Colleges of Nursing, Nursing Faculty Shortage
American Nurses Association, Workforce
Kaplan, “What Is the NCLEX-RN?”
National League for Nursing, Certification for Nurse Educators
National League for Nursing, CNE Eligibility
National League for Nursing, Nurse Educator Core Competencies
National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Approval of Nursing Education Programs
National Council of State Boards of Nursing, Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT)
National Council of State Boards of Nursing, NCLEX-RN Examination
Nursing 2021, “Advancing the profession: The clinical nurse educator”
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nurse Instructors and Teachers, Postsecondary