Ready to level up your teaching with AI? Join us for an interactive session to design AI-powered assignments and role-playing simulations! Using the Health Belief Model, you’ll discover fun, adaptable ways to build essential telehealth and communication skills in your online students. Let’s strike a chord with AI and rock-n-roll!

As AI becomes more prevalent in education, online faculty are increasingly integrating it into their courses to teach complex concepts like informatics and communication methods. Faculty can model the responsible use of AI by designing assignments that utilize AI as a foundational tool for learning. Building on the work of Mollick and Mollick (2024), who demonstrated the use of GPT-4 models to create role-play scenarios for business students, we adapted this instructional method for RN to BSN students. In our approach, students participate in telehealth simulations, assuming various roles, such as patients, nurses, and family members, to practice real-world communication skills.
However, in telehealth settings, students often focus on technology rather than the human aspect of care. To address this, our instructional design integrates the Health Belief Model (HBM), highlighting how patients' perceptions of illness severity, susceptibility, and the benefits of behavior change influence their actions. By strengthening communication skills within the framework of HBM, nurses can empower patients to improve their self-efficacy and engage in preventive behaviors that lead to better health outcomes.

This session will highlight six communication strategies that are essential for providing compassionate, patient-centered care in telehealth: Building Rapport (English et al., 2022), Active Listening (Kruse et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2020), Conciseness and Clarity (Tan et al., 2023), Empathy and Compassion (English et al., 2022; Stokes & Palmer, 2020), Cultural Awareness (Tee et al., 2021), and the Use of Visual Aids (Gosens et al., 2022; Tan et al., 2023). These strategies, well-established in traditional care, must be reimagined for virtual environments where emotional cues may be diminished.

To engage participants and demonstrate the versatility of generative AI, we have developed a series of interactive activities that examine its application in assignments and role-plays. Attendees will be tasked with creating a list of questions to inform the design of a role-play featuring AI-generated characters and scenarios. Additionally, we will present a methodology for developing such role-plays for use in telehealth and virtual teams. Furthermore, we will introduce a gamified activity that challenges small groups to collaboratively create AI-generated FAQs or communication prompts based on real-life telehealth situations. These activities will enable educators to gain first-hand experience of how AI can enhance student engagement and skill development in remote learning environments.

What steps and prompts would you recommend for student AI authoring of an FAQ? Participants will be invited to join a “design sprint” game, where they will brainstorm AI-powered assignments aligned with key telehealth competencies. This fast-paced activity encourages instructional designers to think creatively about integrating AI into their curricula while considering the adaptability of these assignments across disciplines.

Our instructional design approach is grounded in the Successive Approximation Model (SAM) (Allen & Sites, 2012), allowing for agile development and iterative improvements, which is crucial in today’s rapidly changing educational landscape. As AI continues to evolve, it is essential to develop flexible instructional methods that can adapt to emerging trends in healthcare and education. Incorporating AI and the HBM into our telehealth simulations, we help nursing students cultivate essential communication skills while empowering patients to take an active role in their healthcare.

This session will demonstrate how our strategies can be applied to any field, showcasing interdisciplinary collaboration that can inform various remote communication challenges. Attendees will leave with practical tools for incorporating generative AI into their courses and a deeper understanding of how to design meaningful, interactive learning experiences that build critical communication skills in virtual environments.

Learning Outcomes Proposed for this Session:
* Identify and Apply Communication Strategies: Participants will be able to identify six key communication strategies essential for patient-centered care in telehealth and apply them to AI-generated role-play scenarios.
* Design AI-Powered Assignments: Participants will collaborate to design innovative AI-powered assignments that enhance student engagement and skill development, aligned with telehealth competencies and adaptable across disciplines.
* Utilize the Health Belief Model (HBM): Attendees will understand how to incorporate the Health Belief Model into instructional design to improve nursing students' communication skills and empower patients in telehealth settings.