Development and testing of a hyperlearning model for design of an online critical care course

Many U.S. colleges and universities are discovering innovative and exciting ways of using information technology to promote the process of teaching and learning and to extend education to new populations of students. Nurse educators in academia and service settings are developing interactive e-learning programs or courses to meet this need, and to either enhance practice concepts and basic skills or orient new associates to the clinical organization. In continuing education programs, students need flexibility and convenience to concurrently meet their personal and academic goals, and consumer demand for online instruction is increasing. The challenge is to prepare a comprehensive, high-quality, cost-effective e-learning course to meet educational standards and competencies. To meet this challenge, an instructional design model, the Hyperlearning Model, was developed based on Chickering and Gamson's principles of best practices in undergraduate education, to guide the development of an online course for basic critical care content. In this article, I describe the creation and testing of an instructional design model for developing content in this online course.