Online COVID Education by Nursing Students in an Assisted-Living Facility

Educating older adults' caregivers regarding COVID prevention is critical to protect this vulnerable population. In April 2020, students in an older adult nursing course in a Historically Black Colleges and Universities program used videoconferencing to educate staff and administrators in an assisted-living facility about COVID. The facility consists of 70 residents living in 7 different homes in Baltimore, Maryland. All residents have Medicaid. Eleven senior nursing students in an accelerated track were divided into 4 groups, and each group could choose from 7 different COVID-related topics to teach. Each group then presented its teaching project to the online audience. In addition to staff members and administrators, 2 experts (a nursing faculty member from a different nursing program and a previous researcher on SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] in China) and a community leader also participated. Students taught strategies to prevent COVID, epidemiology in the context of global health, and how to do home and group home quarantine with self-care and social distancing. Students also addressed the psychological and social impacts on the elderly. This project allowed students to “create” the highest level of cognitive learning in a practical, contextual, and meaningful manner. In this project, students gained a formal teaching experience, met a community need, and built confidence from written feedbacks provided by external experts and the facility administrator.