Regis professor Michelle Cook creates app and is named Apple Distinguished Educator

Regis, a leading Catholic university in Greater Boston, is pleased to announce that faculty member Michelle Colleran Cook, RN, DNP, Assistant Professor of Nursing, has been named an Apple Distinguished Educator for 2015. Only a small, handpicked number of education innovators who are authors, advisors, ambassadors, and advocates of the importance of new technology to teaching and learning gain membership in this group.

“It comes as no surprise that Michelle Cook has earned this honor,” said Penelope Glynn, Dean of the Regis School of Nursing, Science & Health Professions. “It is indicative of her passion for innovative teaching and her students.”

Apple began its Distinguished Educator (ADE) Program in 1994 when it recognized K-12 and higher education pioneers who are using Apple technology to transform teaching and learning in powerful ways. “Today it has grown into a worldwide community of over 2,000 visionary educators and innovative leaders who are doing amazing things with Apple technology in and out of the classroom. Apple is pleased to welcome Michelle Colleran Cook to the ADE Class of 2015,” according to a company statement.

In 2012, Regis launched its iPad initiative, including extensive faculty development in training workshops and iBook creation. Dr. Cook was an original member of the iPad innovators’ group establishing Regis as an all iPad institution, the first institution of higher learning in New England to issue Apple iPad tablets to all full-time undergraduate and graduate students and faculty. Since 2012 she has actively worked to integrate technology into pre-licensure nursing curriculum.

“‘We need to get them to think like a nurse’ is a statement I have heard nearly all nurse educators make during in their careers,” Cook observed, “but there are not many resources that help students develop those clinical decision making skills.”

“I soon found myself writing an iBook about developing in nursing students leadership abilities like delegation,” Cook said. “I wanted students to consider a situation and have to answer a series of questions to decide if a particular task could be delegated to a non-licensed care giver. It was important that students not be given the solution but would need to work towards a resolution themselves.”

So she started developing a nursing education “app” called Rehearse Nurse in conjunction with the iBook she was writing. Students select a topic and the app walks them through a series of decisions they would need to consider before implementing the desired action. Students eventually gain the ability to work through the decision-making process independently.

“Cultivating in students an approach to thinking is a complex process that is difficult to explain,” Cook observed. “Clinical decision-making in nursing students is enhanced when they engage in problem-based, interactive learning situations where the thought process can be consciously practiced.”

“I really just wanted to be able to purchase something or have someone build this for me, but nothing was suitable,” Cook reflected. “Many were too technical for my ability.”

Cook acknowledges she was having a learning experience of discovery, not unlike the kind she regularly puts students through, but she did not give up.

“Finally,” she said, “I came upon a free Apple program called Xcode. After downloading it and watching many hours of videos, I was shocked to discover that what I had created actually worked! At first I wasn’t sure if it really was an App. After all, I am not a coder, and this seemed too easy to do for someone with my non-tech background. Once I completed the first topic on delegation, however, I realized that this format could be used for many different nursing topics, so I did another. It was then I realized that Rehearse Nurse was really what I was up to, actually teaching students how to think like a nurse.” Cook has recently received a faculty development grant to create more modules for Rehearse Nurse.

Regis was recognized as an Apple Distinguished School for 2015-2016. The Apple Distinguished School designation is reserved for institution-wide programs that meet criteria for innovation, leadership, and educational excellence, and demonstrate a clear vision of exemplary learning environments.

To learn more about Apple Distinguished Educator, visit http://www.apple.com/education/apple-distinguished-educator.