This First-Semester Strategy Helps Nursing Students Quickly Build Confidence & Skills
How a PN Program Rebounded From Probation & Improved Academic Readiness and NCLEX Success
In 2022, the PN program at Lansdale School of Business (LSB) in Lansdale, Pa., faced the challenge every nursing program dreads: reinvigorating itself after being placed on probationary status.
Fast forward to 2025, and the program has achieved this goal and more. Thanks to faculty determination and the integration of key learning and assessment resources, this PN program is consistently achieving NCLEX pass rates of 90% and higher.
Faculty members credit Launch: Nursing Academic Readiness™️ for playing an instrumental role in filling students’ knowledge and skills gaps and building their confidence. Students are scoring higher in two of the more difficult initial courses, Fundamentals I and Anatomy and Physiology, and they are demonstrating greater ability to progress through the curriculum and pass the NCLEX.
Launch: Nursing Academic Readiness Generates Immediate Improvements in Student Performance
“Launch has helped us tremendously,” said Lori Spiezio, MSN, RN, WCC, Director of Nursing for the LSB Practical Nursing Program. “We have seen immediate changes in student performance.”
Spiezio joined the LSB faculty in 2021 and took the reins as director in 2022. She knew she needed to take quick action to address the issues that had led to probationary status, and she recognized the potential for Launch to help address students’ academic readiness gaps. The program implemented Launch in summer 2023.
Poor academic readiness is certainly not an issue unique to LSB. Across the country, nursing students are struggling to meet the demands of the curriculum. For more information on the complex challenge of academic underpreparedness, see this article on the ATI Educator Blog.
Launch Fills Readiness Gaps in Academic Knowledge & Essential Student Skills
ATI developed Launch: Nursing Academic Readiness to address the widespread need for a stronger academic foundation in first-year nursing students. Launch is a self-paced online program with six learning modules that build the academic, mental health and resiliency skills that are necessary for success in a nursing curriculum.
These modules are:
- Orientation & Preprogram Assessment
- Success Skills
- Nursing Math Basics
- Medical Terminology
- Anatomy & Physiology
- Postprogram Assessment & Evaluation
An ATI Educator guides each student’s progress through the modules, customizing the pace and delivery of the learning. This educator communicates often with each student about their progress, providing direction and encouragement. The educator also confers with program faculty to keep them apprised of how students are performing.
Throughout the 6 weeks of the Launch course, faculty can view detailed progress for each student in the ATI faculty portal. If a student requires remediation in a subject area, the ATI Educator provides the resources and direction that are required. Rather than adding to remediation demands on faculty, Launch reduces them.
Students retain access to the Launch modules for as long as they’re enrolled in the nursing program. This means they can return to foundational A&P, study skills or mindset coaching content whenever they need it.
Strategic Curriculum Timing & Placement Help Students Get the Most From Launch
After a program decides to implement Launch, another impactful decision follows quickly on it heels: When should students complete the modules?
Because the purpose of Launch is to build the knowledge, skills and confidence necessary for student success in the first year of a nursing program, the consensus among users is the earlier the better.
Common placement and delivery choices include:
- as a prerequisite to the first nursing course
- as a component of an orientation event or course
- embedded in a first-semester nursing course.
To maximize the effectiveness of Launch at Lansdale School of Business, Spiezio revised the program’s orientation activities and the structure of the first course in the PN curriculum.
"I changed our course lineup so that Launch could be done first,” Spiezio said. “We incorporate it into our Professional Concepts course by giving students some time to work on Launch assignments in class. They also work on Launch assignments at home.”
As part of that curriculum adjustment, Spiezio moved Medical Terminology earlier in the first term and Anatomy and Physiology later in the term.
“This restructuring allows students to build a solid foundation before tackling more challenging material,” she said.
The primary instructor for the initial courses at LSB said these improvements in foundational knowledge enable students to continue experiencing successes.
"Since we've been using Launch, students have a more solid foundation to help them succeed in their other courses," said Debra Clark, BSN, RN, Nursing Instructor at LSB.
Clark teaches Professional Concepts and Fundamentals I, two classes that provide direct insight into students’ foundational knowledge. She said the weekly updates provided by the ATI Educator during the Launch program align with her classroom observations and allow for timely interventions.
“I can tell who's really working through the Launch modules,” she said. “What I see in the classroom and what the coaches are telling me are very similar. … It gives me a better idea of what’s going on with them.”
The Benefits of Launch Extend to Critical Thinking, Test Taking & More
In addition to improvements in academic subjects, the LSB faculty value the ways that Launch helps incoming students build skills that serve them well in other areas.
“A lot of students simply don’t know how to study,” Clark said. “By strengthening their reading and comprehension skills, core concepts are reinforced with a better understanding of the knowledge to apply on tests. The test-taking strategies and study skills modules are very helpful to students. I feel that Launch gets them prepared before they develop poor study habits or test-taking approaches.”
Critical thinking is another area in which the faculty has noted improvements.
“Before we started using Launch, we had more students who did not meet the benchmarks to pass Fundamentals, Medical Terminology, and Anatomy and Physiology,” Spiezio said. “They were really struggling with critical thinking. Since we’ve been using Launch, they have a solid foundation to help them succeed in all of their courses.”
Progress Is Always Possible With the Right Resources
For the faculty and students at LSB, adopting Launch: Nursing Academic Readiness and partnering with ATI has reversed the direction of the program by improving students’ academic readiness, leading to better outcomes.
By establishing a solid foundation for incoming students and implementing data-driven curriculum and assessment solutions, the dedicated faculty quickly turned the PN program around. (Learn more about how ATI’s predictive data resources can help nursing programs with student retention and NCLEX success here.)
“Since incorporating the ATI Complete Package, we have seen a big difference,” Spiezio said. “We’ve been able to increase our pass rates and make a lot of progress because of all the help and tools that we utilize from ATI.”
