Digital Shifts and Community Voices: Forging Inclusive Nursing Pedagogies

The unprecedented events of the COVID-19 pandemic thrust higher education into a rapid digital transformation, profoundly impacting nursing education. As Power, Kay, and Craig (2024) observe, the abrupt shift to online teaching led to widespread innovation in digital tool use and pedagogical practices across Canadian universities. This experience, while disruptive, underscored the immense potential of digital pedagogies, but also highlighted persistent challenges in ensuring equitable and culturally responsive learning environments.  This is particularly relevant to nursing practice in diverse communities.

The pandemic forced nursing programs to rapidly adopt virtual clinical experiences, online lectures, and telehealth simulation platforms. Power, Kay, and Craig (2024) note that while instructors gained comfort with new digital tools, challenges emerged with student engagement in virtual spaces (e.g., breakout rooms) and ensuring students understood their role in the online learning process. Conversely, the shift also fostered the co-creation of learning spaces and the democratization of learning, where students actively contributed to digital learning environments. This forced innovation opened doors for increased flexibility and accessibility in nursing education delivery.

However, the question of digital equity and culturally responsive technology extends beyond the pandemic's immediate response. O'Donnell et al. (2016), in their study on "Digital Technology Adoption in Remote and Northern Indigenous Communities in Canada," offer a vital "whole community" approach to understanding technology adoption, which is highly pertinent to nursing's engagement with diverse communities. This perspective emphasizes that technology adoption is influenced by a broad ecology of community support, including social and cultural factors, beyond individual access. For nursing leaders, this means recognizing that technology initiatives must align with community values, address the digital divide, and be culturally relevant, especially when serving remote or Indigenous communities. For instance, implementing telehealth or online health education in these settings requires addressing not only connectivity but also language barriers, ensuring culturally appropriate content, and respecting data sovereignty.

O'Donnell et al. (2016) highlight how Indigenous communities actively use digital tools for self-determination, cultural revitalization, and community well-being, demonstrating a strong instrumental view of technology. This contrasts with merely "keeping up with technology" for its own sake (Webster, 2017). Nursing leaders working in community health or public health contexts must learn from this, ensuring that digital tools adopted for patient education, health promotion, or remote care are co-designed with community input, address the unique challenges of the digital divide, and honour local knowledge systems. For example, a digital health education platform for a specific community would need to be accessible, culturally sensitive, and integrate community identified health priorities.

In the post-pandemic era, nursing leaders must ensure that digital innovation continues to prioritize pedagogical purpose and student well-being, rather than simply maintaining systems adopted in crisis or chasing the next 'shiny object' in ed tech. This requires a philosophical shift from merely reacting to technology to intentionally shaping it. For nursing education, this means fostering inclusive digital learning environments that reflect ethical and relational leadership philosophies, drawing lessons from both the accelerated shifts of the pandemic and the deep, community-driven approaches to technology seen in Indigenous contexts. Ultimately, forging truly effective and equitable nursing pedagogies in the digital age requires a holistic vision that integrates technology as a servant to learning, community, and care.

References

O'Donnell, S., Beaton, B., McMahon, R., Hudson, H. E., Williams, D., & Whiteduck, T. (2016). Digital Technology Adoption in Remote and Northern Indigenous Communities in Canada. Canadian Sociological Association 2016 Annual Conference.

Power, R., Kay, R., & Craig, C. (2024). The effects of COVID-19 on Higher-Education Teaching Practices. International Journal of E-Learning & Distance Education, 38(2), 1-47.

Webster, M. D. (2017). Philosophy of Technology Assumptions in Educational Technology Leadership. Educational Technology & Society, 20(1), 25-36.