Background: Healthcare anywhere in the world is a dynamic environment. It requires effective and fast thinking workers who will keep the patient central amid all the change and diversity. Registered nurses are pivotal to this workforce as one of the only constants – they are present 24 hours a day. Emerging registered nurses need to be equipped with leadership skills, knowledge and behaviours to ensure patient safety and effective nursing care is provided. These facets need to be developed in undergraduate nursing students to help them to manage themselves, their environment and their patients/clients as they prepare to transition into the workplace. Active Learning is a concept frequently used in the practice development world. The integration of critical thinking with creative use of multiple intelligences embodies Active Learning in action (Dewing, 2008, p 273). Use of this style of learning in undergraduate education is not well documented in literature.

Aim: This paper looks briefly at the introduction of Active Learning in an undergraduate curriculum, but focuses on the author’s reflection and key learning surrounding its implementation and its impact on teachers/facilitators. It then makes recommendations from the reflection and learning to enhance the use of Active Learning in undergraduate settings.

Concluding questions:

• How can Active Learning be integrated meaningfully into undergraduate education?
• How can an educator facilitate Active Learning effectively in classrooms?
• Is practice development a requirement to implement Active Learning?

This article by Rebekkah Middleton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License.