Mission
Caring For Life was founded in 2009 on the idea that compassion is one of the major fundamentals of nursing that is required in today's healthcare. Our mission is to teach students to perform at their highest level in healthcare but to always put the patient's needs first. We believe if you emotionally care for your work, the practical care will excel.
We teach that caring for others is not only a job, but a way of life. Our purpose is to encourage others to lean the compassion and skills needed to truly excel in the workplace. We appreciate the diversity of the eastern North Carolina population and strive to offer them all of the available resources to promote individual growth, career success, and the tools for lifelong learning.
Tanya Fowler, MSN, RN
Director of Healthcare Education
Ms. Fowler began her nursing career as an Intensive Care Unit Nurse working in surgical, trauma, and cardiac ICUs. She later specialized in Emergency Medicine and earned her National EMT-Paramedic certification. She has worked at numerous hospitals around the country. Ms. Fowler began teaching Nurse Aides in the North Carolina college system in 2005. She coordinated, planned, wrote, and taught the curriculum to over 500 students. In 2007, she was recognized as Coastal Carolina Community College's Educator of Year. In the same year, she was honored as one of the top ten individuals in the 58 North Carolina Community Colleges with the R.J Reynolds Excellence in Teaching Award. She has earned a reputation from her students to be a highly motivated and effective teacher that emphasizes the caring aspect of her field with exceptional learning. Since that time she has taught over 2500 area students, many who have gone on to become nurses, physician assistants, and doctors.
Ms Fowler believes strongly in family values. She understands that each of us has a life beyond the classroom. She will work with you so that your family always comes first.
Our Approach To Learning:
Many of our programs are delivered in through a hybrid system in a shorter timeframe than other programs and we are often asked if we provide ‘less’ training. Our programs are built with all the State and National standards that are required, in addition to the knowledge and experience of our instructors. We try to bring you a combination of academic and real-world practice models to give you a well-rounded foundation for the workplace.
The method by which we deliver this hybrid method for many of our programs is through a process called a “flipped classroom”. The flipped classroom goes beyond the traditional classroom setting where an instructor stands in front of the class reciting everything to a student. The flipped classroom steps away from the typical PowerPoint lectures and engages student-centered learning. Students’ complete assignments at home that focus on foundational knowledge such as terms and definitions. Then students can focus on knowledge application in the classroom by completing activities with their peers that simulate real life scenarios that they could encounter in the workplace. This form of engagement motivates students to express their own thoughts during the collaborative process, take an active role in class discussion, and improve student satisfaction with the course (Al-Samarrie et al, 2020). Study after study shows that a flipped classroom, particularly in health care, promotes a better understanding of the topic, improves performance, and demonstrates greater results with National testing compared to traditional classrooms (Koh, 2019).
The biggest hurdle for a flipped classroom is the perception that students are “teaching themselves” as many are reluctant to spend their own time online to cover much of the material. Students are hesitant to take the responsibility of learning the material and fear they aren’t capable of learning as much. Yet studies show that when presented with the same material in the traditional classroom, students learn and retain less compared to the flipped classroom (Al-Samarrie et al, 2020). A flipped classroom allows students to receive comprehensive instructor interactions in the classroom and more time focusing on the activities related to clinical practice.
Motivation is the key to any learning. Research has shown that the student’s motivation for learning ultimately affects their performance. Students who have a positive attitude towards learning, particularly with the flipped classroom, have improved knowledge, skills, and engagement (Ruiz-Jiménez et al, 2022).
Our goal is to assist students to be the best health care providers they can be utilizing the most effective evidence-based methods to promote the environment of learning. While accessing a hybrid environment, the “flipped classroom”, can be a daunting experience for some, we believe it to be the most beneficial means to help ensure that the caregivers of the future are dedicated, knowledgeable, and prepared to meet the demands of the ever-changing health care system.
References
Al-Samarraie, Shamsuddin, A., & Alzahrani, A. I. (2020). A flipped classroom model in higher education: a review of the evidence across disciplines. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68(3), 1017–1051. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09718-8
Ruiz-Jiménez, C., Martínez-Jiménez, R., Licerán-Gutiérrez, A., & García-Martí, E. (2022). Students’ attitude: Key to understanding the improvement of their academic RESULTS in a flipped classroom environment. The International Journal of Management Education, 20(2). doi:doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2022.100635
Koh. (2019). Four Pedagogical Dimensions for Understanding Flipped Classroom Practices in Higher Education: A Systematic Review. Educational Sciences : Theory & Practice, 19(4), 14–33. https://doi.org/10.12738/estp.2019.4.002
