Dosage Calc 360º | Virginia Highlands Community College improves dosage calculation exam scores with F.A. Davis’s Dosage Calc 360°
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Virginia Highlands Community College improves dosage calculation exam scores with F.A. Davis’s Dosage Calc 360°
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“Dosage calculations used to be a struggle to teach and for my students to learn. With Dosage Calc 360° I now have the confidence that students are getting the content and practice they need to be successful in this course.” Brigitte Casteel, MSN, RN Professor and Program Coordinator Virginia Highlands Community College
“It was one of the best decisions I have ever made,” says Brigitte, “and I’ve recommended it to the RN program.”
Brigitte Casteel is a Professor and the Program Coordinator for the Licensed Practice Nursing program at Virginia Highlands Community College (VHCC). The 12-month, three-semester program admits 15-20 students annually. The student population tends to be younger, ranging in age from 18-27. The entire program is taught in-person with all lectures and labs in the classroom. VHCC uses the Canvas learning management system and students access it for assignments and resources. Brigitte has been teaching in the LPN program for 3 years. The challenge: Finding enough time to incorporate dosage calculations into the curriculum The first year that Brigitte taught in the VHCC LPN program, dosage calculations were covered in the first seven-week course and they did not use a separate dosage calculation product. There was very little time to focus on the material and Brigitte was finding it difficult to identify students who were struggling unless they reached out for help. At the end of the course, students are required to take a comprehensive final dosage calculation exam. They are allowed 3 attempts to pass with a score of 90 or better. She was concerned that many students had to take the test 3 times before they passed, and a few did not pass at all. When COVID forced the program to move all lectures online, Brigitte determined that they had to find a better way to support the students in learning dosage calculations.
Because Dosage Calc 360° includes such a comprehensive test bank, the program has been able to easily add a mid-term exam and a comprehensive practice exam prior to students taking the comprehensive final exam. Brigitte believes this has also led to improved test scores and says they wouldn’t have been able to easily add these exams without the wealth of resources available in the product. In fact, she says they now include dosage calculation questions on every test they give in the program which allows for numerous remediation opportunities. While dosage calculation is still taught as part of the seven-week introductory course, having a separate and focused online product allows Brigitte to integrate advanced concepts into other courses. For example, she pushes the IV flow rates content into the medical-surgical course that students take later in the 12-month program. Maybe one of the most exciting changes that Brigitte has noticed over the past year is an increase in NCLEX® pass rates. She believes that some of this can be attributed to Dosage Calc 360° and that students are finally mastering what used to be a difficult topic for them. “The product is really working for us.” The F.A. Davis experience: The VHCC LPN program uses other F.A. Davis products, so when Brigitte was looking for a new way to teach dosage calculations, she turned to them for advice. “I’ve been really pleased working with F.A. Davis and our sales rep. They have been very responsive and wonderful to work with.” She notes that F.A. Davis provided webinar training for instructors and attended the student orientation to make sure students knew how to get into the program and use the resources. “Our Educational Consultant also made it very easy for students to purchase the product and if they have difficulty with passwords or accessing the material, she takes care of that as well. My rep is fantastic to work with.” F.A. Davis products in use by Virginia Highlands Community College: § Dosage Calc 360° by Sandra Lu Martinez de Castillo & Maryanne Werner-McCullough § Davis’s Drug Guide for Nurses by April Hazard Vallerand & Cynthia A. Sanoski § Fundamentals of Nursing Care: Concepts, Connections & Skills by Marti Burton, David Smith & Linda J. May Ludwig § Davis’s Nursing Skills Videos for LPN/LVN § Understanding Medical-Surgical Nursing by Linda S. Williams & Paula D. Hopper § Study Guide for Understanding Medical-Surgical Nursing by Paula D. Hopper & Linda S. Williams § Safe Maternity & Pediatric Nursing Care by Luanne Linnard-Palmer & Gloria Haile Coats § Study Guide for Safe Maternity & Pediatric Nursing Care by Luanne Linnard-Palmer & Gloria Haile Coats § Caring for the Older Adult Holistically by Tamara R. Dahlkemper § Davis Advantage for Essentials of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing by Karyn I. Morgan & Mary C. Townsend § Nursing Leadership and Management and Professional Practice for the LPN/LVN, 7th Edition by Tamara R. Dahlkemper
The solution: Dosage Calc 360°
The program adopted Dosage Calc 360° from F.A. Davis. “It was one of the best decisions I have ever made,” says Brigitte, “and I’ve recommended it to the RN program.” Dosage Calc 360° allows the program to deliver all lessons online through the Canvas learning management system. Brigitte is now able to see how students are performing and can intervene if she identifies a student who is not doing well. “I really like this feature. It allows me to quickly identify which students need some extra help and I can then assign them additional practice questions.” While they have since returned to in-person lectures and labs, Brigitte finds that Dosage Calc 360° continues to offer many advantages. “I can assign lessons and practice questions outside of class. Then when students come to class, we review the lesson and go over additional practice questions.” In addition, Brigitte appreciates that the product gives students many opportunities for practice and allows them to go back and review lessons later in the semester or even later in the program. “The fact that they can go back to specific lessons and work through them again has really helped improve our comprehensive exam scores.” Dosage Calc 360° also ensures that students are able to practice every different type of question that will ultimately be given on the comprehensive exam. The result: Improved exam scores Since using Dosage Calc 360°, Brigitte says that comprehensive exam scores have improved. “More students pass on their first attempt.“ And while some students still have to take the test a second time, the program has not had any students who have had to take the test three times or who have failed. “One of my students got 100% on the exam and that never happens. The student attributed her success to Dosage Calc 360° and said it made her enjoy math for the first time in her life.”
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About Virginia Highlands Community College: Virginia Highlands Community College is located on 100 acres of rolling hills in Abingdon, Virginia. With approximately 3,000 full and part-time students, the school offers more than 98 programs of study ranging from short-term training programs and career-ready certificates and degrees to transfer-ready degrees. Virginia Highlands was recently voted the #1 College in the Region through the Best of Bristol Awards Program—from a group of two- and four-year colleges and universities in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee. About F.A. Davis: F. A. Davis is an independent, family-owned publisher of educational solutions for the Nursing and Health Science professions. Headquartered in Philadelphia, the city of its founding in 1879, the company is dedicated to developing teaching and learning solutions that meet the needs of nursing and health science students, educators, and practitioners. The breadth and depth of our digital, print, and online resources across disciplines and specialties reflect our commitment to listening to our customers and to developing innovative products empowered by the technology that is changing how students are learning, instructors are teaching, and professionals are practicing. F.A. Davis Named Top Workplace 2022 & 2021: For the second year, F.A. Davis has been recognized as one of the Top Workplaces in the greater Philadelphia area by The Philadelphia Inquirer , the region’s most prominent newspaper and news website. These awards celebrate the organizations that prioritize a people-centered culture and give employees a voice that enables them to meet today’s ever-evolving technological, social, and economic challenges. F.A. Davis was ranked in the top half among the top 93 small companies with 149 or fewer employees in the region.
For more information about Dosage Calc 360 0 , visit FADavis.com/DosageCalc or contact us at Hello@FADavis.com
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