Enhancing learning in an online doctoral course through a virtual community platform.

Great teaching engages learners. Creating an online course that is engaging to learners requires substantial planning and creativity. In developing a new online course for doctoral students in nursing (DNP and PhD) and in other health science disciplines, we were interested in creating an application that would 1) support narrative pedagogy, 2) support highly engaging, student-centered learning, and 3) require learners to apply content within real-world experiences. In order to support such learning and achieve these goals, we created a virtual community platform. This paper reports on the development and implementation of a new type of virtual community platform to support teaching and learning in an online, doctoral-level course, specifically designed for nurses and other healthcare clinicians transitioning to a faculty role.