NR 535 Week 5 Active Learning Activity Write-Up Example

Course	NR 535 Theoretical Foundations and Instructional Strategies for the Nurse Educator
Week	5
Paper type	Active learning activity
Length	About 1,130 words, 3 pages
Format	APA 7 student paper
School	Chamberlain University
Program	MSN, Nurse Educator
Updated	September 2026

Free sample paper for NR 535 Week 5

Active Learning Activity: Four Drainage Systems, Four Hidden Faults and Pairs of New Graduates Who Must Find, Explain and Fix Each One While the Educator Stays Silent Until the Debrief

Student Name

College of Nursing, Chamberlain University

NR 535: Theoretical Foundations and Instructional Strategies for the Nurse Educator

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

What this page is doingThe title assigns the thinking to the learners and states the educator's silence as a rule, which is the honesty about who does the cognitive work that the week asks for. Student APA 7 title page.

Active Learning Activity: Four Drainage Systems, Four Hidden Faults and Pairs of New Graduates Who Must Find, Explain and Fix Each One While the Educator Stays Silent Until the Debrief

The Problem the Activity Solves

In our chest drainage sessions for new graduate nurses, most of the thinking has been done by the educator. The educator points to a chamber and explains it, sets up a finding and interprets it, and the learners watch and nod. The learners leave able to repeat explanations but not to produce them. At the bedside, where nobody explains, they struggle. An activity is active only if the people who are supposed to change are the ones doing the effortful work of noticing, interpreting and deciding.

A large meta-analysis of undergraduate science, engineering and mathematics courses found that students in courses with active learning performed better on examinations than those in traditional lectures and were less likely to fail (Freeman et al., 2014). Those were university courses, not clinical training, but the principle transfers: learning improves when learners do the work rather than watch it. This write-up describes an activity for our residency's chest drainage session in which the educator sets up the problems and then stays silent while pairs of new graduates solve them.

Objectives Served

The activity serves three of the session's objectives: checking the water seal for tidaling and bubbling and stating what each finding means (objective 2), telling expected bubbling apart from a lung leak or a loose connection (objective 3), and finding the source of a leak by brief sequential clamping (objective 4). It comes after the nurses have learned to read the water seal on a single trainer, so that they meet the faults with the basic skill already in place.

Setup

Four stations are set up around the skills lab, each with a three-chamber drainage system connected to a task trainer or to a length of tubing sealed into a mock chest. Each station has one hidden fault, prepared by the educator before the session:

Station A. The tubing is kinked under the mattress. The water seal shows no tidaling, although the trainer is breathing.

Station B. A connection between the chest tube and the drainage tubing is loose. There is continuous bubbling in the water seal chamber.

Station C. The trainer is programmed to cough, and there is intermittent bubbling in the water seal only on coughing, consistent with a small air leak from the lung. A card gives a brief history: second day after a lobectomy.

Station D. Tidaling has stopped, the tubing is not kinked and a card states that the chest radiograph this morning showed the lung fully reexpanded.

Each station has a card with the patient's suction order and a blank response sheet with three questions: What do you see? What do you think is causing it? What will you do, in order?

Grouping and Timing

The eight nurses work in four pairs. Pairs are assigned so that each includes one nurse who has cared for a patient with a chest tube as a student and one who has not, so that neither is simply watching the other. Each pair spends four minutes at each station, then rotates, for sixteen minutes in total. At each station, the nurse who did not touch the system at the previous station must be the one to examine it, so that both nurses do hands-on work at two stations.

Within each station, the pair must agree on a written answer to all three questions before moving on. They may not ask the educator anything. If they believe they must clamp to find a leak, they must say aloud where they will clamp and for how long before doing so.

What the Educator Does

During the rotation, the educator and a second facilitator watch and take notes, but say nothing except to stop an unsafe action, such as clamping for longer than a few seconds. This is the hardest rule for an educator to keep, and it is the core of the design. The moment the educator explains, the cognitive work moves back to the educator and the learners resume watching. The facilitators note which pairs reach the right answer, which reach it slowly and which reach the wrong one, and what they say while reasoning.

The Debrief

After the rotation, the group reconvenes for twelve minutes. For each station, a different pair presents its answer, and another pair that reached a different answer, if any, presents theirs. The educator's role now is to ask questions, not to lecture: what did you see first, what made you think of that cause, what would you check next if your first action did not work. Only after both pairs have spoken does the educator confirm or correct.

Station D is used to make a specific point. Several pairs typically decide that absent tidaling is always a problem, when in this case it is the expected result of a reexpanded lung. The debrief uses this to show that the same finding can mean different things in different patients, which is the lesson a diagram-based session cannot teach. Durai and colleagues, writing on chest tube care, stress that tidaling and bubbling must be interpreted together with the patient's condition and the suction order rather than read as fixed signs (Durai et al., 2010).

Why This Design

Several features apply cognitive load theory. The activity comes after the water seal has been learned alone, so the nurses bring a basic schema to it. Each station presents one fault, not several, so that intrinsic load stays manageable. The faults are shown on real devices, not diagrams, so the schema is built on what nurses will see at the bedside (van Merriënboer & Sweller, 2010). Pairing and the rule that the other nurse takes the next station ensure that effort is spread and not captured by the more experienced partner.

How the Activity Is Evaluated

The written response sheets show each pair's reasoning at each station. The educator compares them with the correct answers and notes which faults are misread most often, which guides the next session. Two weeks later, preceptors check each nurse at a real patient's bedside. If the activity works, the bedside check should show nurses stating what they see, what might cause it and what they will do, in that order, which is the pattern the response sheet asked them to practice.

What this page is doingThe write-up specifies setup, grouping, timing, the educator's silence and the debrief questions, and it shows how each design choice keeps the cognitive work with the learners.

References

Durai, R., Hoque, H., & Davies, T. W. (2010). Managing a chest tube and drainage system. AORN Journal, 91(2), 275-283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aorn.2009.09.026

Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410-8415. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111

van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Sweller, J. (2010). Cognitive load theory in health professional education: Design principles and strategies. Medical Education, 44(1), 85-93. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2009.03498.x

NR 535 Week 5 instructions, in plain terms

For Week 5 you typically design an active learning activity for a teaching session. Prompts ask for the activity, the objectives it serves, how it engages learners, instructions for setup and facilitation, timing, debriefing and how learning will be evaluated. Be honest about who does the cognitive work. Design the activity so that learners notice, interpret and decide, while the educator sets up the problem and then steps back. Specify stations or materials, groups, rotation, the prompt learners answer and rules that spread effort among group members. Plan the debrief as questions, not a lecture. Explain the design with evidence. Describe how you will know it worked, and cite sources in APA 7.

How the NR 535 Week 5 example is put together

The write-up opens with the problem that the educator has been doing the thinking in past sessions, and cites a meta-analysis on active learning. The objectives served are listed. Setup describes four stations with a kinked tube, a loose connection, an expected air leak and a reexpanded lung, each with a card and three questions. Grouping pairs experienced and inexperienced nurses and makes them alternate hands-on turns. A section describes the educator's silence and note taking. The debrief section sets out the questions and uses the reexpanded lung to show that one finding can mean different things. Design reasons and an evaluation plan using response sheets and bedside checks close the paper.

Reading the NR 535 Week 5 grading rubric

Active learning rubrics usually reward an activity clearly aligned with objectives, genuine learner engagement, detailed and feasible facilitation instructions, an effective debrief, evidence supporting the approach and an evaluation plan. Graders favor write-ups that make the learners, not the educator, responsible for the thinking and that explain how the design ensures it. Specific setup, timing and grouping rules demonstrate that another educator could run the activity. A debrief built around questions shows understanding of how reflection consolidates learning. Evidence on active learning and cognitive load, applied to design choices, supports the rationale. A realistic evaluation plan completes the strongest papers. A note on how the activity would change for a larger or quieter group shows the design can travel.

NR 535 Week 5 help from the desk

A frequent weakness is calling something active learning when learners mainly watch or answer yes-or-no questions. Make them produce the interpretation. Another is vague instructions, such as students will work in groups, without saying who does what and for how long. Specify it. Students also plan a debrief that becomes a mini-lecture; plan the questions instead. Avoid stations with several problems at once, which overload novices. Do not let the more experienced group member do all the work. Say how quiet learners will be drawn in. Finally, evaluate the activity by what learners can do afterward, not by whether they enjoyed it. Rehearse the setup, since a fault that fails to show on the day wastes a station.

Get a NR 535 Week 5 example written to your instructions

Send us the week's instructions, the rubric and the topic or objective you have been given, plus the group size if your section names one. A custom activity write-up comes back with the prompt written out, timing, debrief questions and the evidence behind the method, inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free.

More NR 535 papers and MSN samples

NR 535 Week 5 questions, answered

What counts as an active learning activity here?

Anything where learners generate something before being told the answer. Think pair share, a case sorted against criteria, a deliberately flawed handoff for a group to correct, a ranked priority list defended aloud. What does not count is a lecture with questions embedded, because the generating still belongs to the educator. The example picks a method that matches the objective's verb rather than the one that fills time comfortably.

Does the example account for a group that will not talk?

It builds the answer into the design rather than relying on the educator's energy. Silent groups usually mean the task was too open, the thinking time was too short, or nobody has to produce anything. Giving two minutes of individual writing before any group work fixes most of it, and requiring a written product from each group fixes the rest. Both appear as design choices.

Does the activity have to be one I invented?

No, and inventing one is rarely the point. Established methods have literature behind them, which is exactly what the evidence paragraph needs. What has to be original is the fit: this method, this objective, this group of learners, at this point in the hour. The example takes a recognized activity type and does the adapting work in the prompt, the grouping and the debrief.

Where can I find a free NR 535 Week 5 sample paper?

The four-station fault-finding activity above is the full NR 535 Week 5 sample and is readable by anyone. If your activity is for a different skill or group, describe it to us and a write-up with setup, grouping and debrief can be drafted.

What should the educator do during the NR 535 activity?

Set up the problems, then observe and take notes without explaining, stepping in only for safety. The sample keeps the educator silent during the rotation and moves all teaching into a debrief built on questions.