Inspiring a new generation of passionate, reflective, and work-ready nurses

Prime Minister’s Joint Educator of the Year

and Te Whatu Kairangi Award: Innovation in learning, teaching, and curriculum

Principal Lecturer, Otago Polytechnic

“Kerry is passionate about nursing and she is an excellent nurse educator with amazing teaching.  She is innovative and forward thinking which impacts on the learner experience.”

Over the past three decades Kerry has worked in Clinical Nurse Education, raised a family of three and completed a Master of Nursing, a Critical Care certificate and a Graduate Diploma in Tertiary education. The youngest of nine children, she grew up in South Dunedin, surrounded by oral history and music, where relationships and people were central to learning and living. Her nursing career began in the ‘heart, lungs and kidney’ ward at Dunedin Hospital, where she built clinical skills in critical care nursing while delighting in each patient’s story and health challenges. She is an innovative educator, particularly skilled in using narrative to give voice to patient experience, bringing content alive through poetry, stories and games.

Kerry joined Otago Polytechnic (OP) in 2018, where she is now a Principal Lecturer, teaching in the three-year Bachelor of Nursing (BN) degree programme with an intake of 140 ākonga each year, including 18% Māori and 7% Pacifika. She also teaches legal and professional theory in the postgraduate Competency Assessment Programme for internationally qualified nurses seeking NZ registration. She is the Course Coordinator for two second-year papers, BN603: Senior Person’s Health, a 120-hour clinical course, and BN606: Evidence-based Nursing.  Teaching in BN603 includes small group tutorials, skills laboratories, and the development of nursing knowledge via role play and simulation scenarios. It also includes clinical supervision, involving site visits to support ākonga on their four-week placements.

Kerry’s first innovation was in 2019 when she designed BN603, a new course for the BN degree, in response to a curriculum gap identified by the New Zealand Nursing Council. It was evident that Aged Residential Care (ARC) is not a popular career choice, but that specialist knowledge is needed in caring for this complex sector. This mahi required leadership and ongoing collaboration with clinical partners, Preceptors, who work alongside ākonga on placement. Kerry’s second innovation was in 2021, when she took over the coordination of BN606, a theoretically heavy course relating to legal, political, and ethical frameworks and codes of professional conduct. The students found this course dry and boring, with an ineffectual, didactic teaching delivery. By placing learners at the centre of her course design, Kerry created real-time ‘rapid handover’ simulation activities, enabling learners to master time management skills and develop confidence in verbal communication. She collaborated with a disability expert to design a simulation exercise ‘Mobile Units’, where ākonga support one another as they perform tasks within the constraints of impaired mobility and low vision. In response to industry feedback that learners needed to be more ‘work-ready’, she developed an essential care activity ‘Getting Ready for the Day’. The COVID-19 pandemic inspired an innovative way to re-engage ākonga with online classes.  Kerry introduced active home-based learning and learner-led debates and brought guest ‘health consumers’ into online classes.

Kerry uses experiential learning activities and authentic stories to prepare ākonga as work-ready nurses and lifelong learners. She says her teaching philosophy reflects her belief in the space between herself and ākonga as precious, a relationship based on mutual respect and active co-creation. She has developed low-cost, tactile, and sensory learning experiences, such as bespoke games ‘Health and Disability Cluedo’ (noticing of important clues), ‘Mix n’ Match Magic’ (identifying breaches in the Health and Disability Code 2022) and ‘Cracking the code’ (deciphering the Code of Conduct 2012). Collaborative Poetry describes a suite of innovative activities that provide a creative way for nurses to make sense of their feelings and develop reflective thinking skills. In a ‘Call and Respond’ activity, ākonga read a poem composed by an older patient, before responding to each line with a stanza of their own. In a ‘Found Poetry’ exercise, ākonga write down their thoughts and feelings about clinical placement. In both activities Kerry then crafts the student voice into a collaborative poem.

“Kerry is an innovative educator, particularly skilled in using narrative to give voice to patient experience, bringing content alive through poetry, stories and games”.  

Kerry harnesses the power of authentic stories to help ākonga gain a deeper understanding of people by inviting guest speakers to share their healthcare experiences with students. These sessions enhance learner engagement, often producing insights that reinforce the importance of using patient narratives for culturally safe and person-centred care. Kerry uses visual and tactile teaching tools to cater for diverse learning styles. She places objects typically found in an ARC resident’s room on a Sensory Table for learners to observe and touch. This is followed by a discussion about etiquette when entering another person’s personal space and the importance of respecting treasured possessions and all they represent.

Kerry incorporates Tikanga Māori into her teaching, such as integrating Rongoā Māori into Medication Safety lectures and Te ara whakapiri (whānau care) into palliative care learning. She uses Mate wareware (Māori perspective on dementia), to illustrate Whakawhanaungatanga - connection and respectful relationships. Central to her teaching ethos is supporting ākonga to achieve equitable outcomes by removing barriers to success. She takes pride in advocating for neurodiverse, part-time learners and, in 2023, contributed to the OP Rainbow Tick reaccreditation process. More than 500 ākonga have successfully completed BN603 (assessed by e-portfolio) and BN606 (assessed by exam, essay and presentation), with a 100% success rate for both papers. In 2022, Kerry received the Otago Polytechnic Student’s Association (OPSA) Teaching Excellence Award.

Kerry’s leadership in ARC education is extensive, ranging from advocating for ākonga success with clinical partners to working in the national health sector, where she is the OP lead for ‘healthLearn’, an e-platform for educators. She works with industry partners to design courses and address recruitment issues and received a Covid-19 response service award from the NZ government for her work in vaccination support. In the School of Nursing, she chairs the Academic Processes Team and is a representative at tertiary open days and career expos. She is also part of an OP leadership initiative ‘Observe a Teacher’ where new kaimahi observe excellent teaching practice, co-teaches and collaborates with Otago Community Hospice and Otago Medical School colleagues, and regularly liaises with consumer advocates, lawyers, professional and research advisors. Kerry shares her ideas through research outputs, including publications in journals, presentations at conferences, and the OP research office health discourse blog.

Kerry is encouraged by the 2024 destination survey, showing 21% of her 2023 cohort of new graduate nurses are now working in older person’s care. Aged care was once considered the professional backwater of nursing, but these statistics show that her course is successfully preparing enthusiastic and capable nurses for the complexity of the sector.

“With Statistics NZ predicting 25% of our population to be over 65 by 2035, it is heartening to see Aged Care Managers acknowledge the impact of BN603:  Senior person’s health.”