To appreciate my philosophy of teaching, my perspective of nursing practice and research first requires attention. For the practicing nurse, nursing is an honor, a service to others, and a highly rewarding profession. It demands a solid knowledge base and practice competencies followed by mastery with life-long learning. It demands authentic caring and compassion with an earnest desire to enter the world of other. For the nurse researcher, nursing is a central meta-paradigm concept, which requires ongoing investigation, along with additional meta-paradigm concepts (person, environment, and health) in order to improve the quality of nursing care, processes of care, the lived experience of illness and care, and outcomes of care (psychosocial and physiological), and thereby the well-being of the populations we serve. Research provides nurses the opportunity to advance knowledge development, and thus, profoundly affect multiple aspects of care and potentially policy. In turn, the health and well-being of countless individuals and families are affected. As with nursing practice, nursing research requires a solid knowledge base and skills to competently conduct studies with mastery gained over time. Practice and research go hand-in-hand. Research informs practice and practice informs research. Both take a strong, lifelong commitment to learning and skill development. For patients, nursing practice often touches them when they are most vulnerable, providing them with competent and compassionate care to improve outcomes. For patients, nursing research is often not well understood but may provide the evidence needed, from a unique disciplinary perspective, to improve processes of care, for example, and thereby, quality of care. As a professor, I believe it is critical to share my perspective of nursing practice and research with students while encouraging them to explore their own perspectives. For students, personal development or adoption of a nursing, cognitive orientation or worldview is fundamental to guide learning, professional goals, and interpretation of nursing experiences. In terms of learning, I expect my students to master conceptual material provided while demonstrating competency in its application both in terms of problem-solving and clinical or research skills over time. For the nursing profession, solid decision-making, proper judgment, and strong skills as well as communication are critical for safe and optimal patient care outcomes. Without mastery of conceptual readings, applied problem-solving and clinical or research skills will be compromised to no end. That said, applied problem solving and skills application tend to foster greater conceptual understanding or clarity. Therefore, my teaching methods are diverse, including didactic approaches, problem-based learning, case studies, and intensive clinical skill building exercises, among others. Although my teaching methods are diverse, in following all methods, I strive to provide ongoing positive reinforcement for incremental successes in knowledge and skill acquisition and their application. It is my responsibility to ensure students have adequate time and attempts to demonstrate knowledge mastery and clinical or research competency. As described in my student evaluations, I am “very supportive,” “knowledgeable,” “respectful,” even “inspirational,” and impress upon students that they are “going to be a good practitioner.” Reinforcement of my students’ gains, while pointing out their weakness in a respectful manner, conveys that I care and believe in them. It is important that we model for our students the caring, confidence in other (student and patient alike), and competence, among other attributes, required to be an effective clinician. Advanced parctice nursing, research methods