Impact in Education: Elizabeth Beam, PhD

Elizabeth Beam, PhD, is the recipient of the Scholar in Education Research Award. The award recognizes an individual who has advanced the science of teaching and learning through research of educational pedagogy.

• Name: Elizabeth Beam, PhD
• Title: Assistant professor, UNMC College of Nursing
• Joined UNMC: 2004
• Hometown: Omaha

You are the recipient of the Scholar in Education Research Award. What is the importance of research in health care education?

Teaching is both an art and a science. Just as in other areas of research, we need to select educational interventions based on the best evidence. Sometimes collecting that evidence is hard because of the complexity of scheduling or the size of a student cohort, but those interventions must be tested and evaluated so that we can move health care education forward in a way that produces the most workforce-ready health professionals.

Describe your proudest moment as an educator.

Every time you work with a student, colleague or mentee and see them “get it,” that creates a rush no paycheck will ever do.

My proudest moment was in 2014 when our UNMC HEROES content on personal protective equipment for Ebola virus disease was disseminated by the Centers for Disease Control in light of the case identified in Dallas. I knew our learning materials were giving the nation some level of control in a very scary time. It was weeks later before the CDC published its own guidance on the topic, after we provided feedback.

What advice would you give other faculty members who want to have an impact in education?

The joy of teaching is making a difference for the future of your profession. For that difference to matter after we’re gone, we must write it down. Publication is your opportunity for immortality.

Do you have a favorite quote or philosophy on teaching?

The human who has guided my education research philosophy is Donald Schön, PhD, who said: “There is a high, hard ground where practitioners can make effective use of research-based theory and technique, and there is a swampy lowland where situations are confusing ‘messes’ incapable of technical solution. In the swamp are the problems of greatest human concern.”

I hope to help make our health care educators strike the balance and build the “reflective practitioner” of tomorrow.