Registered Nursing

The hybrid program is a combination of online activities (videos, discussions, quizzes, exams, remediation, etc. ) and in person activities (class, labs, clinical, standardized exams, etc.).  Faculty are available to students through online sources such as video conferencing, phone or by appointment in their office.  Additionally, faculty are available at class, labs, simulation, and most clinical experiences.

Blended cohorts are similar to hybrid, but there is a greater percentage of time spent on in-person faculty-lead instruction and a smaller percentage of time spent with online instruction. For example, discussions that may have been on a discussion board or taken place in a virtual environment in a hybrid cohort are taking place live while attending class. Faculty availability is the same with the addition of being available during class.  

Lectures

Content is introduced each week in class and online videos. Most videos are 10-20 minutes in length.  The number of videos each week is dependent on the content.  Each week the content is supported with assignments such as discussion forums and adaptive quizzing.  Unit exams are given online with an online proctoring service.

In general, the recommendation is that students should anticipate 2-3 hours per credit hour in a classroom/lecture time plus an additional 2-3 hours per credit hour for assignments and studying. This does not include the time spent in labs or clinical experiences.

Clinical Experiences

During most courses you will attend clinical experiences.  Plan to be in clinical at least one day each week. There may be exceptions when you would have two clinical days in one week.   The majority of our clinical experiences are 12 hours, with some exceptions.

Lab Experiences

Multiple courses will have lab experiences. The program schedules lab experiences throughout the program if necessary for clinical make-up time. It may also do so if the faculty feel that it is necessary to assist the student with any needed competencies.

Simulation Experiences

The program schedules simulation to support the attainment of clinical competencies in the courses.  The program may schedule simulation labs at other times as needed throughout the ASN program.

The OTC ASN program is a pre-licensure program. This program is subject to the Minimum Standards of Approved Programs of Professional Nursing from the Missouri State Board of Nursing.  Each clinical experience needs to meet certain requirements. The program schedules clinical experiences at hospitals based on availability and whether there is qualified clinical faculty to lead those experiences.

The standards for entry to professional nursing have gotten increasingly difficult.  The NCSBN designed the NCLEX-RN exam to ensure that each person taking the exam meets the minimum standard of safe practice.  The NCLEX exam tests the ability of the applicant.

The student must demonstrate they can use critical thinking and clinical reasoning at a safe entry level of practice.  In order to try to help students reach the aptitude necessary to be successful on their first attempt of the NCLEX-RN exam, the ASN program requires that each student remediate.

Students must complete remediation on any exam on which they scored below the passing standard.