Do you find yourself reading the same paragraph of material over and over because it is not sinking in? Do you find it hard to get motivated and stick with a study plan? Do you feel overwhelmed and discouraged staring at a pile of books and resources, and you don’t know where to start? Do you find your scores not improving on the practice exams? Then you might be the perfect candidate for all the advantages a live NCLEX review class can offer.
Now that you have realized you need a live review class, what questions should you be asking to make sure you are signing up for a class fit for you, in order to succeed?
1) Size of the class– Make sure to ask how many students are in the class. The larger the class size, the less likely you will be able to engage in class. Class sizes should be limited especially if you need and desire a lot of personalized and individualized attention. Having less students to manage allows more opportunities to clarify concepts as well as answer questions.
2) Length of class– How many hours are being provided and what activities are you going to be engaged in besides lecture. It may be that the class provides more hours lecturing on content. However, this can lead to passive learning. Passive learning often does not stick because it can often lead to only superficial understanding or worse, memorization of content. If all the hours will be spent in lecturing, you might as well sit at the comfort of your own home reading, listening, or watching video lectures.
3) Activities in class must be diversified to keep you engaged and active in the learning process- questions that are discussed should be geared towards application of nursing concepts into practice and for the NCLEX. To prepare for CAT exams (computer adaptive exams) a candidate can no longer just memorize a stack of feedbacks (info that some review centers say they got from inside sources and past test-takers on what showed up in NCLEX exams) and pass the exam. Nurses must be able to process information to the level of understanding nursing workflow; hence it is important to have instructors, who can combine knowledge of the NCLEX with clinical experience, in order to facilitate the students’ visualization of how nursing decisions are made and lead to patient outcomes.
4) Time for evaluation and recommendations-Is your weakness just content, processing of the information, or the ability to make a decision and act like a nurse? To really help you, time and effort must be made to evaluate how much information you were able to digest about the concept(s) that was just taught. You must demonstrate the ability to solve problems surrounding the topic that was just reviewed. Having an experienced NCLEX review instructor and coach, who is able to provide you with additional perspective on what areas you need to work on and help you come up with a realistic action plan will increase your chances for success.
There are many advantages to attending a live review class. There may be many reasons why you can’t attend a live class; but for some, it is the only way to achieve your goal of passing the NCLEX. Are you thinking about attending a live review class? What are the reasons that may be holding you back?
Your Coach 