“Our goal is to prepare entry-level nurses who provide safe, high-quality care, and Assist helps students develop critical thinking and prioritize patient needs in real time,” said Scott Dolan, PhD, dean of the school of nursing. “By integrating this technology, we’re building on our strong outcomes, program expansions and long-standing reputation for producing practice-ready nurses.”
The faculty-facing tool supports the registered nursing and licensed practical nursing programs.
Nursing leadership and faculty have been testing Assist in classrooms since fall 2024 to see how it can enhance teaching effectiveness and make real-time curriculum adjustments. Students benefit from it through higher-quality instruction, increased faculty availability and more responsive and learner-centered courses.
Through the pilot program, faculty learned it can improve efficiency and instructional responsiveness, and that it saved them more than five hours per week to use toward student instruction, advising, remediation and individualized support. It also helped simplify curriculum development, classroom engagement and respond more effectively to student needs.
“We believe AI works best as a support tool — not a replacement for clinical judgment, instructional expertise or hands-on learning. Ongoing evaluation is essential to ensure accuracy, alignment with course outcomes and student needs as Clark State works to ensure AI incorporation is responsible and effective in education," Dolan said.
Dolan said the nursing program was well-positioned to pilot this AI platform because it has a strong culture of innovation and collaboration.
“Assist allows faculty to work more efficiently with trusted, evidence-based clinical content, freeing up valuable time to focus on what matters most — direct instruction, individualized student support and responding to learning gaps in real time," he said.
“As health care continues to evolve, we saw an opportunity to responsibly leverage AI in a faculty-directed way that enhances educational quality, supports strong outcomes and better prepares students for the realities of today’s workforce.”
As AI continues to evolve, Adrienne Forgette, provost and vice president of academic affairs, said the college is exploring how it can be used to strengthen teaching and learning across all programs. She said any future integration would be faculty-led, aligned with program needs and accreditation standards, and driven by evidence of student benefit.
Forgette said faculty participated in a professional development session on AI use, and many are experimenting with AI to improve course design and delivery and offer assignments where students are taught how to use AI in an ethical manner and reflect on the results.
Clark State offers many nursing credentials, from practical nursing to registered nursing certificates to advanced degrees and a bachelor’s in nursing program. For more information, visit clarkstate.edu.
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