Kristen McHenry, an assistant professor in the online degree advancement in respiratory care program, and Camille Stover, a clinical assistant professor and director of the on-campus Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care program, presented at the American Association of Respiratory Care Congress in Nashville, Tennessee in November.
The American Association for Respiratory Care Congress is one of two of the largest gatherings that the association hosts each year where practitioners, educators, vendors and staff of the respiratory care field gather to share knowledge, ideas and network.
McHenry presented a talk titled “Pro/Con – Traditional Lectures Need to Go!” This presentation was part of the “Engaging Gen Z with Active Learning” symposium and where McHenry debated with a fellow educator the effectiveness of traditional lectures in today’s higher education learning environments. She introduced a brief history of non-lecture teaching methods, characteristics of the Gen Z population that may impact learning, and types of active learning strategies.
McHenry earned her Bachelor of Science in Cardiopulmonary Science in 2005, Master of Science in Allied Health Education in 2013, and Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis in 2017, all from East Tennessee State University. She holds a specialty credential in adult critical care, which is where she spent most of her career practicing in Bristol, Tennessee. McHenry has served as the co-chair of the education committee for the Tennessee Society for Respiratory Care and has been an active member of the Association for Respiratory Care since 2013.
Stover presented a talk titled “Make the Learning Go ’Round: Carousel Case Studies in your Classroom.” As the learning needs of students evolve, instructors continue to search for innovative opportunities to engage students with both the content and one another. Carousel case studies are a great way to engage students and allow them to work together to come up with answers to questions. In a carousel case study, there are multiple rounds and for each round a new student group gets the activity and answers the next question based upon the previous group’s answers. Sometimes students are asked to justify the answer that a previous group has made. Carousel case studies are a great way to push students out of their comfort zone and require them to look at scenarios from a different perspective. Stover’s session investigated the advantages of team-based learning strategies aimed at building critical thinking ability on an individual level.
Stover earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Boise State – a Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care in 2014 and a Master of Education Technology in 2018. She joined the department in 2017 as a graduate assistant, was hired as a clinical assistant professor in 2019, and became the on-campus program director in 2021.
Boise State has three respiratory care programs: On Campus Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care Program, Registered Respiratory Therapy-Bachelor of Science Degree Advancement Online Program and Master of Science in Respiratory Care.