Master of Science in Nursing-Nurse Educator Online
Become the nursing leader, educator, and mentor you aspire to be.
Program Overview
Learn more about our MSN Nurse Educator online degree
Set a high bar for quality patient care by earning your Master of Science in Nursing - Nurse Educator online from Worcester State University. This education-focused, graduate nursing degree prepares you with advanced clinical knowledge and proven instructional techniques that empower you to guide nurses and elevate their patient care outcomes.
As an online graduate student, you will learn from our world-class educators who are experienced in both nursing practice and education. In fact, the faculty and teaching staff in the Dr. Lillian R. Goodman Nursing Department take pride in their longstanding reputation for training top quality nurses and supporting students in and outside of the classroom. Our faculty will instill in you the cornerstones of good teaching and shape you to be a successful nursing educator yourself.
This rigorous academic program prepares you for evidence-based nursing practice with a growing focus on multidisciplinary care and the nurse’s role as leader and manager of the client’s health care. Our graduate level curriculum reflects the core knowledge for all master’s programs in nursing as defined in The Essentials of Master’s Education in Nursing by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. These Essentials are core for all master’s programs in nursing and provide the necessary curricular elements and framework, regardless of focus, major, or intended practice setting.
Your nurse educator MSN online program will culminate with two practicum courses in which you will have the opportunity to apply your learnings in real-world settings. You will benefit from the guidance of working clinical staff who serve as preceptors as well as from our expert faculty. Plus, you will be able to complete direct patient care hours in your preferred area of specialty.
As an added benefit, in earning your MSN Nurse Educator degree and gaining the relevant experience, you will be eligible to apply for national certifications including:
- The Certified Nurse Educator (CNE) Examination by the National League for Nursing
- The Certified Academic Clinical Nurse Educator CNEcI Examination by the National League for Nursing
For nurse educators, certification establishes nursing education as a specialty area of practice and creates a means for faculty to demonstrate their expertise in this role. It communicates to students, peers, and the academic and health care communities that the highest standards of excellence are being met. By becoming credentialed as a Certified Nurse Educator (CNE), or CNEcl, you serve as a leader and a role model.
"It was helpful coming at teaching from a different angle. You learn different ways to address problems, and that helped me be a different type of preceptor.”
-Lexi Hall
Worcester State online class of 2023
The master’s degree programs in nursing at Worcester State University are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (http://www.ccneaccreditation.org).
In this MSN Nurse Educator online program, you will learn to:
- Lead others in high quality and safe patient care practices
- Promote a culture of safety, professional accountability, and evidence-based patient care
- Collaborate with teams to improve care outcomes and support policy changes
- Integrate emerging informatics, health care technologies, and related ethical principles in your clinical decision-making processes
- Advocate for policies that improve the health of the public and the profession of nursing
- Analyze health outcomes from an ecological, global, biological, and socio-cultural perspective
- Integrate clinical prevention and population health concepts in the development of culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate nursing education
- Lead others in high quality and safe patient care practices
- Promote a culture of safety, professional accountability, and evidence-based patient care
- Collaborate with teams to improve care outcomes and support policy changes
- Integrate emerging informatics, health care technologies, and related ethical principles in your clinical decision-making processes
- Advocate for policies that improve the health of the public and the profession of nursing
- Analyze health outcomes from an ecological, global, biological, and socio-cultural perspective
- Integrate clinical prevention and population health concepts in the development of culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate nursing education
Nurse Educator Career Options:
- Professor
- Clinical Nurse Educator
- Continuing Education Specialist
- Patient Education Coordinator
- Professor
- Clinical Nurse Educator
- Continuing Education Specialist
- Patient Education Coordinator
In this MSN Nurse Educator online program, you will learn to:
- Lead others in high quality and safe patient care practices
- Promote a culture of safety, professional accountability, and evidence-based patient care
- Collaborate with teams to improve care outcomes and support policy changes
- Integrate emerging informatics, health care technologies, and related ethical principles in your clinical decision-making processes
- Advocate for policies that improve the health of the public and the profession of nursing
- Analyze health outcomes from an ecological, global, biological, and socio-cultural perspective
- Integrate clinical prevention and population health concepts in the development of culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate nursing education
- Lead others in high quality and safe patient care practices
- Promote a culture of safety, professional accountability, and evidence-based patient care
- Collaborate with teams to improve care outcomes and support policy changes
- Integrate emerging informatics, health care technologies, and related ethical principles in your clinical decision-making processes
- Advocate for policies that improve the health of the public and the profession of nursing
- Analyze health outcomes from an ecological, global, biological, and socio-cultural perspective
- Integrate clinical prevention and population health concepts in the development of culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate nursing education
Nurse Educator Career Options:
- Professor
- Clinical Nurse Educator
- Continuing Education Specialist
- Patient Education Coordinator
- Professor
- Clinical Nurse Educator
- Continuing Education Specialist
- Patient Education Coordinator
Also Available:
Tuition
Valuable education that’s invaluable to your career
Worcester State tuition is extremely affordable. Plus, you can pay by the course—making it easy to budget. Worcester State is committed to offering a high-quality education that is accessible to students at all levels of financial need.
| Program | Per Credit Hour | Per Program |
|---|---|---|
| MSN Nurse Educator | $504 | $17,640 |
Additional Fees
Application: $50
*Tuition and fees as of Fall 2024. Worcester State reserves the right to change tuition and fees at any time. Accelerated online programs are not eligible for tuition remission benefits, waivers and vouchers.
Calendar
Set a reminder for all our important program dates
It's always a good time to earn your degree from Worcester State University online. We offer six start dates during the year so you can begin your program when it's most convenient. Check out the chart below for important dates.
Now enrolling:
| Session | Start Date | Application Deadline | Registration Deadline | Document Deadline | Tuition Deadline | Last Class Day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spring I | 1/27/25 | 1/10/25 | 1/22/25 | 1/17/25 | 1/22/25 | 3/16/25 |
| Spring 2 | 3/24/25 | 3/7/25 | 3/19/25 | 3/14/25 | 3/19/25 | 5/11/25 |
| Summer 1 | 5/18/25 | 5/2/25 | 5/14/25 | 5/9/25 | 5/14/25 | 7/6/25 |
| Summer 2 | 7/14/25 | 6/27/25 | 7/9/25 | 7/4/25 | 7/9/25 | 8/31/25 |
Admissions
Apply for this online nurse educator program
The admission process is the first step toward earning your degree at Worcester State! Please read the admission guidelines to ensure you qualify.
In addition to Worcester State University Graduate admission criteria, applicants to the Master of Science in Nursing Program must:
- Have achieved a GPA of 2.75 in undergraduate study. Applicants may seek conditional admission with a GPA of 2.5 if they have demonstrated substantive growth as a professional nurse.
- Have Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from an accredited program and regionally accredited university.
- Hold a current unencumbered license to practice professional nursing in one of the states where practicum is approved, which include MA, RI, CT, ME, NH, NY, PA and SC (contact [email protected] if you would l like to complete practicum in another state)
Please note: Two professional references and a career essay are required of all Graduate student applicants. These must be submitted during the online application process.
Official transcripts may be mailed or emailed directly from the granting institution(s) to:
Mailing Address:
Graduate Admissions Office
Worcester State University
486 Chandler Street
Worcester, MA 01602
Email: [email protected]
Courses
Find out what you’ll learn in our online MSN Nurse Educator degree
For the online nurse educator program, you are required to take 11 courses for a total of 35 credit hours.
Upon successful completion of the course, the student will:
- Employ a knowledge base in nursing practice to design, implement, and improve teaching strategies that facilitate learning.
- Demonstrate a knowledge base in adult learning theory, education theories, models, and concepts related to curriculum design, nursing education programs, and teaching practices that facilitate learning
- Compare and contrast different philosophical and theoretical perspectives as they relate to nursing education.
- Analyze knowledge and skill from the natural, physical, behavioral, and nursing sciences, education, humanities, multiple theories from learning and education-focused research to design, implement, and improve teaching practices that facilitate learning and foster critical thinking.
- Evaluate current research findings and evidence-based practice to design, implement and improve teaching strategies that facilitate learning.
- Apply established theories to the development of conceptual frameworks, curricula, and the teaching-learning process in nursing education.
- Distinguish the learning needs of students while considering diversity and learning styles.
- Explore a variety of different teaching formats to use in the nursing classroom or staff development presentation
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Describe the nature of knowledge, science, theory, and paradigms in nursing
- Discuss the development of nursing as a science
- Analyze major trends in the history and evolution of nursing theory
- Investigate the processes of concept analysis and theory development in nursing
- Critically evaluate selected nursing concepts and theories for potential use in nursing practice, education, research, and administration
Upon completion of the course, the students will be prepared with the necessary knowledge and skills to:
- Examine the components of the research process as related to the integration of scholarship in nursing practice and education.
- Access and apply relevant information needed to answer questions in nursing practice using appropriate scholarly databases available through technology.
- Integrate theoretical knowledge from nursing and health research to evaluate evidence that best applies to a specific research question.
- Utilize the research process to address an identified question in nursing education.
- Interpret results of quantitative and qualitative data analyses.
- Critically appraise published research using established criteria.
- Evaluate the application of ethical principles to nursing research.
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Students will summarize the U.S. health care system including its defining characteristics and perspectives of key stakeholders; stakeholders include nurses who represent the single largest occupation in the health care industry.
- Students will describe the major trends currently evolving in the health care system in order to investigate trends of particular concern in terms of academic or professional interests.
- Students will explain the public policy making process including the governmental bodies and players that influence health policy.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Obtain and record historical data for the complete and accurate assessment and risk appraisal of a patient according to age and developmental status.
- Employ critical thinking, perform and record a complete, systematic, accurate, caring, and appropriate physical examination.
- Identify and document abnormal findings in the physical examination.
- Discuss prevention and health maintenance concepts and schedules.
- Explore aspects of the family and the community that affect the health of the individual.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Relate disease states to loss of homeostasis due to changes in structure or function of important physiologic parameters.
- Synthesize assessment data necessary to gather information on patients' disease processes.
- Identify regulatory and compensatory mechanisms as they relate to commonly occurring diseases.
- Integrate pathophysiologic concepts of disease in assessment of patients across the life span.
- Apply pathophysiologic concepts of disease to the management of commonly occurring conditions across the life span.
- Analyze and interpret diagnostic and imaging tests based on pathophysiological concepts.
- Explain environmental and occupational factors’ influence on disease progression.
- Discuss the role of genetics in preventing and assessing risk factors for diseases.
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Discuss concepts and principles related to pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and pharmacotherapeutics.
- Demonstrate understanding of major drug classes, focusing on patient populations.
- Identify potential drug-drug interactions of major classes including significant adverse drug reactions, and appropriate interventions in the care of patients.
- Compare and contrast the specific pharmacology of the major drug classes including important distinctions among each drug class, the risks and benefits in relation to the organ systems they affect, and the diseases for which they are used therapeutically.
- Explore various teaching strategies to aid in the knowledge development of pharmacology.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Synthesize knowledge of educational theories and teaching strategies in order to incorporate into teaching practice and personal philosophy of teaching and learning.
- Critically evaluate current research evidence related to the to the use of technology and simulation in nursing education.
- Describe various learning styles and learner characteristics of students.
- Evaluate the use of various experiential teaching strategies to meet the needs of diverse nursing students.
- Develop instructional materials and activities for classroom and clinical teaching that exemplify sound pedagogical use of educational technologies.
- Describe the evaluation of student learning both formative and summative utilizing various evaluation tools.
- Develop a professional e-portfolio according to the standards identified in the practicum guide.
- Complete a minimum of 60 hours of teaching practicum with assigned mentor according to the standards identified in the practicum guide.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Analyze the role of the nurse educator in academic and clinical settings.
- Apply ethical principles of student supervision and evaluation.
- Select and apply teaching-learning theories and strategies in academic and clinical settings.
- Design, implement, and evaluate appropriate teaching-learning strategies.
- Participate in leadership activities within the role of the nurse educator.
- Synthesize and apply evidence-based strategies in enacting the nurse educator role.
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Explain how study design and the selection of an appropriate sample affect the reliability of the study results and the inferences about a population.
- Illustrate various methods of graphing data.
- Compute and distinguish between the uses of measures of central tendency, measures of variation and interpret commonly used measures of disease such as incidence, prevalence, and relative risk.
- Discuss the concept of probability and link probability to health statistics.
- Identify the basis for hypothesis formulation and perform a multi-step hypothesis testing procedure by hand.
- Use SPSS to perform and interpret the results of a t-Test ANOVA, Chi-square test, correlation and logistic regression.
- Identify and interpret applications with time-to-event outcomes.
- Explain the principle of statistical adjustment of confounding.
- Compute and interpret a confidence interval around a mean.
- Explain how power and sample size are interrelated.
Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Their potential leadership style and how to use this understanding of themselves in choosing what leadership roles will be a good fit for them.
- How to identify their strengths and the strengths in others that may report to them in future leadership role. This understanding will shape how they assign tasks to be successful in future projects.
- How to assess best practice guidance through peer reviewed research to apply to the clinical area.
- How to build a case to influence stakeholders and funders regarding future decisions in healthcare delivery.
- Where to find allies and networking regarding best practices in nursing education to advance knowledge and new trends in nursing education.
Course rotation:
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