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Educators continually face the challenge of engaging students in learning activities. Gamification is emerging as a strategy to enhance nursing education. In addition to being fun, games can also promote learning (Roche, Wingo, & Willig, 2017). First-semester nursing students are required to learn and apply concepts in a fundamental health assessment course. However, performing a neurologic assessment can be difficult for nurses. To adequately perform a neurologic assessment, it is important for students to grasp the function of each cranial nerve. This article describes the use of a low-tech game to teach the functions of cranial nerves and their assessment techniques to undergraduate nursing students.
Method
Heads Up! (Telepictures Productions Inc., 2013), a popular smartphone app played by Ellen DeGeneres, inspired the development of our cranial nerve game. Similar to charades, players guess what term their teammate is describing without seeing the actual term.
Students completed readings on module content and learning objectives, in addition to a baseline assessment of knowledge prior to the game. Classes of...